30 Aug Lessons in Spiritual Transformation with C.S. Lewis

Lewis writes about this boy, “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” He was a selfish boy and you have to read the book to understand just how repulsive his character was to the Pevensie kids before his transformation. Upon arriving in Narnia, Eustace came upon a dragon’s lair with massive amounts of treasure and fell asleep upon it. When he woke, he had become a dragon himself:

“He had turned into a dragon while he was asleep. Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself“

Eustace learns much and grows in character during his time as a dragon. This is the work of Aslan, who provides opportunities of testing for the boy turned dragon. The time comes for Eustace’s transformation, where Aslan provided a well of bubbling water, which Eustace knew would ease the pain in his leg, but the lion (Aslan) told him to undress first. He tried desperately to scratch layers of dragon skin away only to see that he could not do it himself:

“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 jut 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 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. . . .”

Lewis writes the following about Eustace post-transformation:

“It would be nice and fairly nearly true, to say that ‘from that time forth, Eustace was a different boy.’ To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun.”

This is such a great story to illustrate for a child what spiritual transformation looks like. Lewis illustrates so beautifully that we cannot transform ourselves – only God has the power to do that work. And our growth in character is a lifetime journey. But when God begins the work of transformation in a person’s heart, that work will continue and be carried to completion as we yield to God’s Spirit day by day.

Do your children ever say to you, “I can never be good. I try so hard and keep doing the wrong thing!” What a perfect opportunity to share God’s saving power through Christ with them. No, we cannot save ourselves. But Jesus can save us. The cure can begin to work in their hearts and day by day, transformation can occur by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.