The Dragon Skin We Cannot Shed Ourselves

In C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the selfish boy Eustace Scrubb falls asleep on a dragon's hoard and wakes to discover he has become a dragon himself. His greed has literally reshaped him. Desperate, Eustace tries to scratch off the dragon skin, peeling away layer after layer with his own claws. Each time, a new layer of scales appears underneath. He cannot fix what he has become.

Then Aslan appears. The great Lion tells Eustace, "You will have to let me undress you." Aslan's claws cut so deep that Eustace says, "The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart." The pain is real. But when it is over, Aslan throws the boy into a pool of water, and Eustace emerges with soft, new skin — human again.

Lewis understood something every pastor has witnessed: we cannot transform ourselves by trying harder. We scratch and claw at our worst habits, our bitterness, our selfishness, and we find more of the same underneath. Real transformation requires a hand stronger than our own, a work that cuts deeper than we would dare go.

The Apostle Paul wrote, "If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). God does not merely improve us. He remakes us — not without pain, but never without tenderness.