The Law of Unintended Consequences Strikes Again
With my father in ICU on a ventilator with Covid, I have come to realize that hospital regulations denying all visitors access to patients might actually be killing people.
I have no statistics outside my own experience. It is now terrifying to go into the hospital. The idea of being cut off from loved ones for weeks and the potential of dying alone encourages people to try to convalesce at home long past the time they should be admitted to the hospital. People get sicker and take longer to recover once they are admitted thus overcrowding hospitals more.
It’s the law of unintended consequences.
Harsh, sweeping policies without the flexibility to adjust for context tend to reap an unexpected harvest. Covid-19 has revealed this in many startling ways. I have a deep appreciation for our healthcare professionals who are heroes, especially in this last year. They are laboring selflessly under tremendous burdens. They deserve love, care, and gratitude.
The initial mindset in committing to these policies was to protect people. The problem is that no human being can fully anticipate all the consequences of their choices. That’s right, you can’t either.
It’s a scary thing to go through life without knowing exactly what the end result of daily choices will be. It can become quite debilitating to think about it. Many just make choices and ignore the results, obliviously leaving a wake of destruction behind. Others freeze, running from as many big decisions as possible. The rest vacillate somewhere between the two extremes.
This dilemma does not have to exist for a believer. We have James 1:5-6.
Humanity’s slavery to a particular time and space means that we can never get the 30,000-foot view of life to make completely wise decisions. However, God sees all of this perfectly and we can tap into His wisdom.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. (James 1:5-8)
I need a better perspective.
Too many times we do not ask for wisdom because we think we know what is best. In our arrogance, we think we have it all figured out. Other times we act in instinctive fear based upon our untrustworthy feelings. I don’t know it all, and that is OK.
God wants me to ask.
Yes. Ask. Why? We ask because God commanded it. Asking is the prerequisite to answered prayer and many blessings in scripture. Yes, God knows what we need before we ask. Yes, God sometimes meets our needs when we do not even have the understanding to ask. But he still tells us to ask. The request for wisdom should be the most often made request before our all-wise God. It should be on our lips every day, every hour.
I have to ask, respond, and live in faith.
Believing is not easy. It takes having confidence in the very character of God. James addressed this when he describes God as one who gives liberally and without reproach. The supply of wisdom God has is unlimited. He WANTS us to ask for it and He gives it to us freely. He doesn’t criticize us for our stupidity as we seek it. We have to understand this and believe it enough to act accordingly. We have to have the faith to ask and then the faith to trust the wisdom He gives.
Sometimes God’s wisdom is counterintuitive. The widow filling her vessels with oil acted in faith against rational thought and God gave her a miracle (2 Kings 4:1-7). She did this at the specific instructions of the prophet. Sometimes we just have to ask, consider all the possibilities as best we can, and then make a choice trusting that God has already given us the wisdom we requested. As believers swing back and forth between the wisdom from above and the wisdom from below, they demonstrate the double-mindedness and instability that James describes. Believing means walking forward in confidence without looking back trusting that our good God has kept His promise.
As incredibly intelligent as our medical community is, they are not immune to the devastating impact of unintended consequences. Thankfully, we have God who guides based upon His perfect perspective.
Do you believe it?
My mother just passed away in Dec 2020. She had been in a rehab center for over two years because of an injury due to a fall in her home. If you were to describe my mother, she was a social butterfly, full of energy, excitement, and the joy of the Lord. When COVID hit, her center closed the doors to outsiders, but eventually several in the center contracted the virus anyways. In the following months, several elderly in that center died with no family members allowed around them. No family to hug, to hold, to comfort, etc. For over eight months, the only visits we had with my mother were “window visits”. For a social butterfly, that was a death sentence of its own. My mom miraculously overcame the “virus”, but eventually got sick in other ways. By the grace of God, some staff members in the center realized my mother was dying and allowed us to “gown up” to go in to say goodbye. Praise the Lord for that dear staff member who had befriended my mother for those few months. Sadly, many did not and/or will not have that opportunity. On the day my mother went home to be with the Lord, we stood in a circle and prayed and cried. The dear staff worker stood in our circle with us and prayed and cried. My heart breaks for those who do not have the opportunity to be with their loved ones during these very difficult times.