Pastor John D Jakes

When we think about the flood recorded in Genesis, we think of judgment, salvation, rain, animals, and an ark.  We don’t necessarily think of the subject of unforeseen consequences.  Yet, they are there.  We have the consequence of the terror of animals.  We have the consequence of a fear of rain and a fear of spreading across the earth (see the tower of Babel).  Lots of consequences that are hard to predict occur after the flood.

Isn’t life like that?  Something happens, even something good, and there are all sorts of ramifications.  Many of those ramification are things that we could never predict.  We cannot always see what is right around the corner.  We certainly can’t predict the responses to our choices of every single person.  For some, this is a headache that they just deal with.  For others, the law of unforeseen consequences chokes out any real effort to try anything new for themselves or God.  How do we avoid the unforeseen consequence?

The real answer is: you can’t.  There is no way to avoid the unforeseen consequences of life.  Wisdom can help us foresee the ramifications of some of our choices, but it can’t eliminate all of them. So, the question becomes, “What can I do about unforeseen consequences?”

If you have a standard that you live by and that standard is one that you know that you can trust, then you can deal with the unforeseen or unintended consequence.  However, let me caution you – you must be completely convinced that your standard is correct.  Otherwise, the unintended consequences will cause crisis of faith after crisis of faith.  That is no way to live!  Instead, a fully convinced mind has already counted the cost and has chosen the standard they can live by.

Consider these words of Jesus as I close this post: