Learned Behavior

They were so cute, little baby wolf cubs waddling around their pen.  Their mother had died and so they were being cared for in a sanctuary set up to both study and raise them to eventually be released back into the wild.  The scientist in the interview had become their surrogate mom, and explained that though they had all the instincts of a wolf, they still needed their mother to teach them how to hunt, to be aware of danger, to work together as a pack, and of course to howl.  So every day a few times a day the scientist would come close to the pen and howl as best she could, and the little cubs would answer back in their tiny high pitched voices with their noses pointed upwards, enjoying themselves completely.  I just wanted to take them out of the TV screen and hug them, they were so lovable!

But isn't it interesting that though God made all creatures with instincts and innate abilities and behavior, we still have to be taught how to use them?  Had the wolves been raised as mere house pets, they would never be able to survive among wolves, and yet because they were meant to be wild, they would never be able to live in a home either.  They had to be taught to be who God created them to be.

I have come to know a good number of young women and men who have grown up in homes that are nothing like a home.  They know something is wrong in their family, yet they have no idea what a happy home is like or if they ever could have one for themselves.  Something inside of them tells them that they were created to live in a loving, supportive environment.  It's instinctive knowledge in all of us that we were created for this.  But generations have passed in these families where addictions, abuse, unfaithfulness and rejection are the norm.  So what do these kids do when they reach adulthood?  What kind of life skills do they have to draw on?

They want a happy home, but it's so easy to look for love from a guy who will sweet talk them for a while, get them pregnant and leave them for another girl.  Now she is doing the same thing that her mother did to her.  She resents this baby that's stealing away her youth, and leaves it with relatives so she can go out partying at night.  He hates his father for abusing his mother and abandoning the family, and then turns into his father's spitting image.  With each generation the image of a faithful marriage becomes more of a fairy-tale.  The concept of being a parent who upholds standards of honesty and integrity, who understands the balance of discipline and selfless love - a vague dream.  The conviction that they should fight to become the person God created them to be - such a foreign idea, it doesn't occur to them that they could be anyone else but what they have learned.

So who will teach them to find themselves?  Where are the sanctuaries to nurture and develop these young, lost minds?  Can it even be done, or have too many generations passed?  Like I mentioned in a past post, when the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on the earth?