When playing golf, my worst nightmare is getting into a sand trap. Invariably, my instincts take over and fear prevails. Many of my golfing buddies tell me to have patience, that  I act too quickly.   It was one of these ‘good’ sand trip golfers who reminded me  to consider the trap an ‘opportunity.’ What a novel idea, akin to: ‘by the time this is over you will have taken advantage of a perfectly good crisis.”
Recently I wrote to a group of e-mail friends and asked for their comments and feelings concerning the coronavirus. Their replies were enlightening as many discussed the frustrations surrounding their everyday life. I surmised from their general attitude they had acquired the essentials such as milk and toilet paper, however, the one essential giving them the most difficulty was ‘patience’.  Could it be the virus is creating sand traps in our game of life?
One of the observable behaviors in our Christian lives is the lack of spiritual goals. We have goals in other spheres—-career goals, vacation goals, weight loss goals—which we pursue with ongoing action. I hasten to add I am very aware that in some Christian circles formulating spiritual goals is considered taboo.
Have you heard anyone discuss their spiritual goals during this crisis? It is somewhat odd that many people do not have concrete goals in spiritual improvement. They go ‘with the flow’ and make comments, “God is going to take care of me.” Or they answer, “I go to church every Sunday.”
We Christians have an endless capacity for improving—“-I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Maybe we  should we  go back to the  previous comment: ‘by the time this is over we will have taken advantage of a perfectly good crisis’.
In golf you Identify the sand traps and learn the basic procedures to get out of them or to stay out of them. In life the sand traps are the areas where you need to improve your daily behaviors and spiritual foundation and establish goals to avoid them.
Sand traps tend to occur in the same predictable spots every day.  So be smart and target these places in your behavioral analysis and “be conformed to the image of Christ”.
Look at the sand traps that are giving you difficulty and develop a Christ-like approach. You will discover to your surprise how good obedience feels—that instantaneous lightening and strengthening that accompanies putting the flesh to death.