In “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” by CS Lewis, we find Eustace, the children’s cousin turned into a dragon by sleeping on a dragon’s hoard of treasure with dragonish thoughts in his heart. A few days later Aslan is helping him; Eustace is told he must shed his dragon skin and bathe in a well, but every time he sheds a skin, there is another underneath. Then the lion says ‘You will have to let me undress you’
“I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear that he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off...”
“Well he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the other had been..” “Then he caught hold of me… and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious….And then I saw why. I had turned into a boy again.”
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, [CS Lewis, 1952]
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit
2 Corinthians 3:17,18 [NIV]
We have years of rubbish, selfishness, wrong attitudes – sin, that needs to get discarded. We may try to scratch off the scales ourselves, and it may even seem like we've achieved some success at it, but there is still more underneath. Only when we let God cut away all the layers will we become what God wants. But those layers are very thick, God changing us can be painful, but the beastly stuff will lay there on the grass someday, looking thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking that anything we were able to scratch off. As the dragon scales are removed we learn the strength of vulnerability, the confidence that underlies gentleness and the freedom that comes when we are as God intended us to be.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
2 Corinthians 5:16,17 [NIV]
Father – let me be open to your transforming in my life.
Guy Mowbray
No comments:
Post a Comment