“It was the worst elk hunting trip I’ve ever made,” my friend lamented over coffee. As an Idaho native, he had taken some well-earned time off and planned to bag an elk while he was back home. Sadly, that was a futile effort, as he saw very few elk and then only at too great a distance.

In many Rocky Mountain states, the federal government has reintroduced wolves into national parks in an effort to remove them from the endangered species list. What could possibly go wrong? The wolf population has increased dramatically. The unintended consequences are a greatly diminished elk population along with cattle, sheep, and even domestic dogs being killed.

Whenever men try to change the natural order of things, there will always be “unintended consequences.” In Genesis 1:1, we read, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (ESV) After every stage of the creation account, God pronounced the work of His hands as “good” (verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 24, 27), and in verse 31, after completing His work of creating man, He proclaimed it “very good.” He followed this up be giving man His instructions for living a fulfilled life.

Jesus reduced all of this to two simple commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40). Pretty simple when you get right down to it. Following His teaching on disciples bearing spiritual fruit as they heeded His commandments, He told them the result would be that “My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:11)

I’m not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but I can definitively say that “joy” is not the character trait we see in non-Christians. This is the result of failing to follow the “owner’s manual” for relationships — relationships with each other and our relationship with King Jesus. Our society is experiencing the unintended consequences of forsaking God’s prescribed order of business for mankind.

The Apostle Paul accurately described this current generation: “For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.” (2 Timothy 3:2-5) This sounds like the evening news. None of this resembles the “love God” and “love your neighbor” commandments Jesus summarized as upholding everything taught in the “law and the prophets.”

Is there a solution for our current predicament? Yes, there is. The solution is for God’s people to live out the two great commandments, loving God and loving our neighbors, because when that happens, our joy is full. And when our joy is full, we shine as a light in the darkness, and we have something to offer those around us who live lives of depression and despair.

It’s time for Christians to start living happy-face lives as a testimony to the world.

What say ye, Man of Valor?
Semper Fidelis!