Stephen Weir wrote a good book that’s entitled, “History’s Worst Decisions and the People Who Made Them.” In reading the book I came across the story of Thomas Austin. In the year 1859 he wanted to have a Christmas hunt on his property 60 miles from Melbourne, Australia. To get ready for this, he imported 24 rabbits from England and turned them loose on his land. They quickly started multiplying, as rabbits will do.
But here is what happened: within a couple of years, over 3,000 square miles of farmland around his estate had been stripped of vegetation by the rabbits. Within 7 years, the devastation spread as far as Queensland, 2,000 miles to the north. And by the 1940s, the population of rabbits in Australia was over 800 million. Australians even today are fighting the rabbits of Thomas Austin.
Unfortunately, bad decisions that we make can have consequences for a long time. May God help us to always be careful about what we do.
The Epistle of James has good advise for us: “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.” (James 1:5)
I pray that God will remind us today of the importance of making good decisions . . . and the wisdom that God offers to each of us.