Health Decisions and the Law of Unintended Consequences
How can we navigate uncharted waters and the unintended consequences of our decisions in the middle of chaos, crisis, and disease?


How can we navigate uncharted waters and the unintended consequences of our decisions in the middle of chaos, crisis, and disease?The coronavirus is a pestilence, a pandemic. It’s a scourge, makes people ill, takes lives. Human beings rightly want to kill it.So public health officials and political leaders are daily making innumerable and complex decisions in efforts to curtail its spread.But no one knows what will result, whether these actions will indeed “flatten the curve” of virus growth. And even more, no one knows what unintended consequences will result from actions meant for good.We cannot unerringly predict when the coronavirus will run its course. But we can believe God’s promise:“And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” (Genesis 8:21-22).No pandemic can thwart God’s purposes. For God there is no such thing as unintended consequences. God is still there, and he is not silent.