“1Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘2Honor your father and mother’—which is the first commandment with a promise— ‘3that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ 4Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” ~ Ephesians 6:1-4NIV
I saw a video from 60 minutes where juvenile delinquent elephants brutally murdered about 30 rhinos. What had happened was elephant families were broken up, and only the young elephants were transported to a different park, and they grew up without adult supervision. These young elephants then formed an elephant gang and were going around harassing and killing rhinos. The rangers were bewildered at first, then they began to look into this and figured out that the young elephants were killing the rhinos and not poachers. This was baffling for them at first; then, they realized that these hooligans had no role models.
Social rules and protocols are not something innate, it is learned, it is taught, it is modeled by adults. Males learn from males, and females learn from females, and, if it is the plan of God in the animal kingdom, how much more in the human kingdom.
So, what the rangers did was to select some big strong male elephant bulls, and after tranquilizing them, they transported them to where the young teenage gangsters were. With the arrival of the adult male figure and role model, the young elephant gang was soon reined in, and peace between the elephants and rhinos ensued. The rhino murder rate fell to zero.
The whole thing, peace thing, according to the rangers, was all thanks to the introduction of the positive role model of the adult elephant bulls. Not only is it important in the elephant community, but it is just as important in human lives as well. Today we have so many young men killing each other. So many mothers now have to mourn their sons’ deaths because they were taken too soon.
We have the power to change the lives of so many people, but we have to desire to change their lives first. We can say that change is necessary. We can hashtag this and repost that, but unless we actually take a stand and do something, we might as well be asleep unaware of what’s going on. The only thing that can prolong evil is for good people not to do anything. If we would wake up from our spiritual laziness and make the conscious effort to change just one person’s life, then we could change the entire world. It starts with you.
Peace. Love. Go Forth and Rein In The Wild Elephant.
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