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Chasing our Tails: A Christian Perspective

January 03-2018 Happy Dog | Britt Selvitelle via Foter.com  -  CC BY
January 03-2018 Happy Dog | Britt Selvitelle via Foter.com - CC BY

The CBS Anchor Dan Rather, in his memoir, Rather Outspoken, asks, “What do we believe? Where do we put our trust?”

He suggests that as far as the news is concerned, we shouldn’t be too quick to believe what we are

told. After forty years as a journalist in the US, Rather has seen politics, economics, and the trivial get in the way of the truth. Late in his career, he found a benefactor who saw investigative journalism as a public trust, and briefly was able to report the news without these outside pressures.

When he was putting his team together, he got a call from an Los Angeles reporter with a high paying job who was desperate to join him. “I am so sick of reporting on the Kardashians,” he said. “Who knew there were so many of them??”

What do we believe? Where do we put our trust?

We often look for God – try and create places and times when we can find God.

Matthew 5: 1-12

When Jesus tells us who is blessed, what he means is quite simple:

  1. Those who are living out their lives in faith;
  2. Those who go about - seeking to do what is right;
  3. Those who are able to feel their pain and express it;
  4. Those who are trying to show mercy;
  5. Those who are willing to accept insult and injury for the sake of doing what is right;
  6. Those who seek to make peace;
  7. Those who are walking humbly before God

are met by God.

God encounters them.

God lives in them.

God strengthens them.

It’s not about reaching out to God in some special manner.

God comes to us, and meets us- where we are.

in our weakness,

in our grief,

in our hunger for salvation,

in our attempt to do what is right,

in our pain and suffering.

He meets us in the cross that we share with Jesus.

The proof that God meets us ultimately is found in us -

  1. in our growth in understanding,
  2. in our increase in love,
  3. in our acceptance and faith in the midst of continual suffering,
  4. in our doing of justice,
  5. in our love of kindness,
  6. in our humble walking with God.

Celebrate this -- God comes to meet us - in all ways and in all places. And all God asks us of us

is that we trust and believe in God.

I heard a fable about a talking puppy that noticed that whenever he was happy, his tail wagged, so he thought he had discovered the secret to happiness. He shared the secret of happiness with an older dog.

He said, "I have learned that the best thing for a dog is to be happy, and that happiness is in my tail. So I am going to chase my tail; and when I catch it, I shall have happiness.

The old dog replied, "I too believe that happiness is a marvellous thing for a dog, and that happiness is in my tail. But I have noticed that whenever I chase my tail, it keeps running away from me; but when I go about my business, it follows me wherever I go.

Many of us are like the little puppy chasing his tail - trying to find true happiness that is always just out of our reach. What we need to do is learn that if we will just be about God’s business and trust in God, happiness will follow us wherever we go.