The Dragon Who Couldn't Undress Himself

In C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the boy Eustace Scrubb turns into a dragon. His greed and selfishness have finally taken outward form. Desperate to become human again, Eustace tries to scratch off the dragon skin himself. He peels away one layer, then another, then another — but each time, there is still more dragon underneath.

Then Aslan comes. The great lion tells Eustace that he will have to let him do the undressing. And his claws cut so deep that Eustace says it hurt worse than anything he had ever felt. But when it was done, Aslan threw the boy into a pool of clear water, and Eustace emerged with new, tender, human skin.

Lewis understood something about transformation that we often resist: we cannot peel away our own sin deeply enough. We try — we make resolutions, turn over new leaves, scratch at the surface of our habits. But the dragon goes deeper than our own claws can reach.

This is why Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come; the old has gone, the new is here." Real transformation is not self-improvement. It is surrender — letting the Living God cut past every layer we have built around our hearts, even when it hurts, because He alone can make us new.

The good news is that on the other side of that painful undressing, there is fresh skin and clean water waiting.