Sand Traps of Life – Chris Adams

While at the beach, my husband and I watched a man hitting golf balls (probably the plastic kind) toward his kids in the water. I said, “That’s a great way to learn how to hit a ball out of a sand trap.” To which my husband replied, “The goal is not to get in the sand trap in the first place.” (FYI, I am NOT a golfer!)

My next thought, and the first thing that popped out of my mouth was, “Yeah, but how else would you learn to hit one out of a sand trap if you’d never been in one?”

My mind began rolling and ended up with this post! I love how God even speaks to me at the beach and includes golf in the lesson.

Think for a minute. If we never get in a trap of disobedience, we have no idea how badly we need help learning what obedience is. If we’d never failed in some way, we wouldn’t learn how to do it differently next time. And if we had a perfect life, we would never be able to help another struggling believer in their own journey of difficulty.

But the most important thing is that if we were perfect, we would have no need of a Savior. Of course that is ridiculous because no human, other than Christ, has ever been perfect. Which is why He came and left us with His Holy Spirit to teach and strengthen us, especially through failure. No failure is fatal if we come through it with a deeper understanding of our own weaknesses, a deeper desire to live in the Spirit rather than in the flesh, and a deeper resolve to live as Jesus lived to glorify God.

Romans 8:26-27 reminds us of the ministry of the Holy Spirit when we are weak and do not even know how to pray:

So today, if you are in a sand trap, or if you fall into one, ask the Holy Spirit to show you how to swing that club (perhaps at the enemy!) and drive the issue right out of that trap. Prayerfully, next time you will make an even better shot than this time, or you will avoid that sand trap altogether.