Anyone that has talked to me in the last two weeks knows that my life is, to say the least, frustrating right now. Rather than hash out the tiresome details (again), I would rather discuss something that a lion has shown me.....
I am re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia series for about the millionth time. I love these books. I have loved them since the age of 7, when my mom ordered them for me out of a Scholastic catalog. I've had the same set since then. I didn't know as a young child about God, or Jesus, or christianity, or that C.S. Lewis was a christian. I do now though, and it amazes me what you can learn about God from reading these stories.
Right now I am on book 3, Voyage of the Dawn Treader. *SPOILER ALERT* There is a scene in the book where one of the characters accidentally becomes a dragon. I know, right? How do you accidentally become a dragon? Anyways, the character becomes a dragon, but eventually the lion Aslan shows up and tells them they have to take off the dragon skin to enjoy this wonderful hot spring that the character has found. Well, the character takes the skin off, tries to step in the hot spring, and sees that there is another dragon skin. So they try and take that one off. The same thing happens several times. Finally Aslan tells the character that HE has to remove the skin for it to permenantly stay off. When Aslan removes the skin though, it actually hurts. This is because the character was just removing a thin, artificial layer of skin. Aslan was removing the whole thing, all the way down to the muscle. After that, the character had beautiful new skin and was able to enjoy the hot spring.
In case you've never seen or read any of the Narnia books or movies, I will clue you in to the fact that Aslan represents Jesus in them. The dragon skin the character was wearing was representative of their heart (at the time, the character was selfish, mean, greedy, etc). Here's what the Lion taught me....we ALL have things or issues that we must deal with and that need changed to be closer to God. Essentially, we all have our own "dragon skin" that needs to be shed to enjoy the gifts that God has for us. However, when WE try to remove those things on our own, it never really works....they always come back. I don't know HOW many times I have tried to be a kinder person, or honor God with my finances better. But guess what? I can't maintain it...the stupid dragon skin keeps coming back. So now, I need to let Jesus take the skin off.....and that's what He's doing, and BOY does it hurt. I have never felt like such a burden on people and have never felt so frustrated and helpless. But you know what? When this is all over.....man, am I going to enjoy my fresh new skin and that amazing hot spring. :-)
