Eustace’s Un-Dragoning : Part 3 : Letting him

If you haven’t yet done so, you should read part 1 and part 2. The final part of this series is the actual un-dragoning, which happens like this:

“Then the lion said – but I don’t know if it spoke –‘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 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. You know – if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“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 so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.”

When Eustace sees that he won’t be able to solve his problem himself, he is desperate enough to surrender to the lion even though he knows it will be painful and a little scary. He lies on his back and lets Aslan do what needs to be done; he lets him claw right into his heart. And it is even more painful than he expected, but at the same time it is never more than he can bear and even finds pleasure in seeing the skin coming off.

Eustace points out the difference between his own efforts and this final skin-peeling – that it was the same as he had been trying to do all along, only they hadn’t hurt.

It’s important to realize that true change will not be easy; it will be terribly painful. When we let him, God will change us into people more like him, closer and closer to his perfection as we grow, but it will hurt. It will tear deep into our souls and it’ll be worse than anything we’ve felt before. But it won’t be more than we can bear. First Corinthians 10:13 says, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” (ESV) It’s important to note that he will provide the way of escape. Otherwise, this would contradict the point made in part 2. We will be able to endure it, but only by relying on him.

In A Grief Observed, chapter 3, Lewis says this: “The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness…Suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless…What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’? Have they never even been to a dentist?”

Then there is the wonderful thing that comes after giving up, because through grace, it doesn’t have to end there. If we’ve already realized both the holiness, or perfection, and power of God, and the gravity and hopelessness of our own imperfection, we may proceed to the next step which leads to our salvation, or rescue.

C. S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity, book 3, chapter 12, “All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, ‘You must do this. I can’t.’ A serious moral effort is the only thing that will bring you to the point where you throw up the sponge. Faith in Christ is the only thing to save you from despair at that point: and out of that Faith in Him good actions must inevitably come.”