Chasing Mechanical Rabbits

Greyhounds chasing mechanical rabbit.

I’d never heard of greyhound racing until I recently read an article about mechanical rabbits. It seems that the racing of greyhounds has been around for a long time, but originally the dogs were enticed to run by first sending out a rabbit for them to chase. When caught the rabbits would squeal a child-like sound that caused many potential spectators to avoid the races. So an enterprising man named Owen Smith built a mechanical rabbit that was used as a lure to entice the greyhounds to run.

The thought of a fake rabbit being chased by greyhounds caused me a good chuckle but after a second or two that laugh turned into an introspective pause. How much of my life has been spent chasing fake lures?  The adversary puts so many “mechanical rabbits” in front of us, winds them up, and then watches us chase breathlessly after them. (And I’m sure he laughs as he watches.)

We chase appointments and fail to visit with our neighbors. We chase social pleasures and miss telling a bedtime story to a child. We chase wealth and fail to notice the beauty of a sunset or the unfolding of a rose. We chase after the prestige of having the cleanest house or the fittest body or the most in-style clothing and fail to grasp the lasting joys of life.

In short, we need to realize that mechanical rabbits are running all around us, but until we learn to identify a real rabbit we are constantly in danger of running after the wrong thing.