Saturday, February 19, 2011

Consequences

In his book, History's Worst Decisions and the People Who Made Them, Stephen Weir tells the story of Thomas Austin's ill-fated plan in 1859 to have a Christmas hunt on his land 60 miles from Melbourne, Australia. Austin imported 24 rabbits from England and released them onto his property, where they promptly started multiplying like, well...rabbits.

Within a few years, over 3,000 square miles of farmland around Austin's estate had been stripped of vegetation by the rabbits; and by 1866, the devastation spread as far as 2,000 miles north to Queensland. By the 1940s, the rabbit population was estimated at 800 million, and each rabbit was figured to have cost one Australian dollar in damage. To this day, Australians are still fighting Thomas Austin's rabbits.

Bad decisions have long-lasting effects. Our choices often come with unintended consequences. They set the direction of our lives, whether for good or ill. The value of making wise decisions is a lesson we all need. As you make decisions big and small, pray for guidance and make them prayerfully and thoughtfully.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for your post Kimberly. You are so right in that some decisions have long lasting consequences; and some are irreversible. For me being divorced is a decision made that is not fixable. It happened and the effects of it will last the rest of my life in some way. However, because the Lord promises that he works all things out for good to those who love him (Romans 8:28), I have continued hope every day that he is doing this.

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