Sequel to The Grasshopper Trap: Denying God’s Belief in Us
In the voice and theology of Dallas Willard, draw on Luke 9:23 and Philippians 3:10 for the daily discipline of death and rebirth to become like Christ.
ChatGPT Prompt
1. The Daily Discipline of Dying
The call of Jesus — “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me” — is not an invitation to grim heroics. It is an invitation to life itself.
When Jesus speaks of taking up the cross daily, He is not prescribing religious misery. He is describing the necessary process of transformation by which the false self dies so that the true self may live.
This death is not primarily about losing things, but about being freed from illusions.
This death is not primarily about losing things, but about being freed from illusions.
Every day, the self that tries to manage life apart from God must consent to die.
This is not accomplished by willpower, but by willingness — a posture of cooperation with grace.
In that dying, the soul is re-formed to receive divine life moment by moment.
[For a deeper exploration of this theme, see Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines and Renovation of the Heart.]
2. Molting: A Natural Image of Spiritual Change
The grasshopper’s molting captures this beautifully.
The insect must shed its old exoskeleton repeatedly to grow.
The old shell is not bad — it was necessary once — but if it refuses to crack, it becomes a coffin.
So it is with spiritual formation.
We live inside the hardened structures of ego — opinions, fears, habits, defenses. They give shape but also limitation.
Christ’s call to take up the cross is the invitation to molt.
Christ’s call to take up the cross is the invitation to molt.
The cross is the point where the old structure splits — where control dies and trust begins.
To “lose one’s life” daily is not to despise the self, but to outgrow the self —
to let the Spirit enlarge our capacity for divine participation.
Willard described this as the process of spiritual transformation into Christlikeness through “the disciplines of abstinence and engagement” — fasting, solitude, silence, confession, worship, and service.
(See The Spirit of the Disciplines.)
3. Participation in the Pattern of Christ
Paul’s longing in Philippians 3:10 — “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death” — is not a grim formula but the secret of abiding joy.
To know Christ is to enter His pattern:
death that leads to life, surrender that becomes strength.
Every loss — reputation, control, certainty — becomes a new birth canal for grace.
We don’t seek suffering, but we consent to its redemptive purpose:
to draw us deeper into the reality of divine love.
Every loss — reputation, control, certainty — becomes a new birth canal for grace.
This is what Willard called “apprenticeship to Jesus” — the ongoing training of the inner life to walk in the ways of the Kingdom.
4. The Inner Mechanics of Rebirth
Death to self is not accomplished in a single act, but through sustained apprenticeship to Jesus.
- Through solitude, we die to distraction and are reborn into awareness.
- Through forgiveness, we die to vengeance and are reborn into mercy.
- Through generosity, we die to scarcity and are reborn into abundance.
- Through obedience, we die to autonomy and are reborn into participation.
In each case, what perishes is false; what arises is real.
That is the ongoing miracle of spiritual formation — resurrection happening quietly in the ordinary.
[For practical instruction, see The Divine Conspiracy, particularly Willard’s teaching on “The Cost of Nondiscipleship.”]
5. The Cross as Instrument of Grace
The cross is not primarily an emblem of suffering but of availability.
It is the posture in which divine life flows unimpeded.
When Jesus says, “Follow Me,” He is not leading us to destruction, but to integration — the full uniting of our life with His.
The grasshopper must break its shell, or it cannot become what it is meant to be.
We must consent to the daily fracture of ego, or we cannot become what we already are in Christ.
This is the grasshopper cure:
to die a thousand small deaths so that divine life may molt through us,
until, at last, our being fits the glory that has always been prepared for it.
This is the grasshopper cure:
to die a thousand small deaths so that divine life may molt through us,
until, at last, our being fits the glory that has always been prepared for it.
6. Conclusion: The Apprenticeship of Resurrection
The Christian life is not about managing sin but receiving life.
The cross is not an event we admire, but a pattern we inhabit.
The Christian life is not about managing sin but receiving life.
The cross is not an event we admire, but a pattern we inhabit.
Each day, the old self clings tighter, and each day grace gently pries its fingers loose.
To live as Christ lived is to trust that resurrection follows crucifixion — not once in history, but continually in us.
And when the final shell breaks, and we at last stand radiant in His likeness,
we will see that every daily dying was only molting —
the necessary rhythm of love remaking us in the image of the One who first believed we could be like Him.
Further Reading:
Radically Happy 
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