Chasing Your Tail

“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Why do you cry to

me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward.’”
Exodus 14:15

The picture that comes to mind when you hear the phrase ‘chasing your tail’ is of your pet dog spinning in circles, sometimes at breakneck speed, trying to catch his tail, no doubt hoping to deal with a bothersome flea that has taken up residence there. And every time, at some point in the exercise, the dog always gives up and ambles away, moving on to something else that’s caught their attention.

But ‘chasing your tail’ isn’t a saying used only in the world of dogs and cats; so often it is applied to us humans also. The idiom is defined like this: to be busy doing a lot of things but achieving little or nothing. And I would think we could all relate to times when we find ourselves spinning our wheels and going nowhere, or going in circles only to end up right back where we started, having accomplished little or nothing.

Sitting here at the computer, I’m guessing that that was the first tree that Zacchaeus climbed in all his years as a tax collector. And how often do you think Peter and John took fishing instructions on where to cast their net from a carpenter? And I wonder if Mary always left the dishes to her sister Martha or if just this one time, she saw an opportunity and went for it? Consider this quote about change: “The truth is that walking with God requires an ongoing, ever-changing experience. One of the sure signs that God is doing something in your life is that change is involved.”

Chasing your tail can be the pursuit of something that will never pan out, routines in our lives that consume our time but never yield any fruit, or going through the motions on the wrong assumption that there’s nothing you can do to change your life. How ironic that God, who calls us to prayer, told Moses to tell the people, “Stop praying and get moving.”

Stop chasing your tail might mean doing something you’ve never done before, or going somewhere that makes you uncomfortable just thinking about it. It might mean picking up the phone and dialing that number, or sitting at the computer and typing that email. Or maybe it’s picking up the Bible after years of frustration over God not speaking to you. But whatever the case, Moses got it right; it’s the call to stop chasing your tail and go forward in life.”

God Bless
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church