Chasing Our Rabbits

I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Php 3:12

Dwayne had quit his practice and was working in Emergency rooms three days a week. He had been an excellent pulmonary doctor with a great reputation, a busy practice and was my favorite pulmonary consultant, so I asked him why he made the change.

“I nearly lost my family last year, going for the gold---You know, I got to all my son’s baseball games this summer.”

This past Sunday my pastor shared Rev Fred Craddock’s story of the time he visited his niece and was warming himself by a fire one Georgia winter. Craddock watched with contentment a large greyhound dog lying before the fire with two toddlers resting their heads on his back. He then struck up a conversation with the dog.

I said to the dog, “Are you still racing?”

“No,” he replied

“Well, what was the matter? Did you get too old to race?”

“No, I still had some race in me.”

“Well, what then? Did you not win?”

“I won over a million dollars for my owner.”

“Well, what was it? Bad treatment?”

“Oh no,” the dog said. “They treated us royally when we were racing.”

“Did you get crippled?”

“No.”

“Then why?” Craddock pressed, “Why aren’t you racing?”

“I quit.”

“You quit?”

“Yes,” he said, “I quit.”

“Why did you quit?”

“I quit because after all that running and running and running and running, I found out the rabbit I was chasing wasn’t even real.”

Most of us as doctors go chasing after rabbits that aren’t real at some time in our lives. Some of us may still be at it. All of us need to check out the rabbit that has us running. We don’t all need to quit our present positions and take three day a week jobs in the ER, but each of us does need to discover, with the Lord and our families, the life goals that really matter---and then run like the wind to reach them.

Dear God,
Help me look at my life and run after only those things that really matter to you.
Amen