Chasing Rabbits

     When I was about eight, my parents signed me up for ten accordion lessons.  Kinda boggles the mind doesn’t it?  We named my accordion “Wheezy.”
     Lessons were painful for all involved.  My younger brothers were dragged on a weekly trip where they had the chore of waiting in the car for an hour for my musical education to end.  Inside, I looked longingly out the window at them while I toiled away trying desperately to pull, squeeze, and press Wheezey’s  many keys.  The person who was possibly the most miserable in all of this was the instructor who was listening to my pitiful efforts.
     One day I glimpsed my brother Don leap out of the car and take off running across a nearby field like he had been fired from a cannon.  John tumbled about behind him shouting.  Five minutes later Don came trudging back to the car and climbed in.  My accordion gave it’s last gasp and wheeze of the lesson and I hurried out to the car to find out what the excitement had been about.
       My brothers had been watching the rabbits in the field and plotting to catch one.  My mother in a plea to keep them from injuring one another out of boredom had told them that if they could catch a rabbit, they could keep it.  An unsuspecting bunny had wandered just close enough to the car that Don thought his moment had arrived.
     Don insisted that he almost caught that wily rabbit.  He said that he actually touched the rabbit as it escaped into a hole in a rock wall.  He just wasn’t quite fast enough.  The prize had slipped through his grasp.
     Have you ever felt like my brother?  Something you want is in arm’s length and as you reach out to grasp it, it’s gone like a rabbit down a hole.  For some of us, it may be a new job.  A new house.  Health.  A happy marriage.  Children who eagerly listen to parents.  The salvation of loved ones.  The list goes on.  Everyone here has felt the hopelessness of not getting something that we want.
     But, here is the good news.  It’s better than any of those things.  It’s within reaching distance and it won’t slip through your hands.  It’s the love of God.  Come near to God and He will come near to you.  James 4:8.  
     On this Easter morning, know that God will not scurry away and leave you empty handed.  He will not hide when you go looking for Him.  And as fast as you can run to Him, He will run to you.  He will allow you to draw Him into your arms and heart.  The closer you get, the closer you will become.  
     Sometime later my brothers were given two Dutch Miniature Rabbits and like all of God’s blessings, they multiplied like rabbits - pressed down, shaken together, running over, and poured into our laps.
     How has God blessed you this Easter?