In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world … So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David … He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
- from Luke 2:1-5

Caesar Augustus didn’t have Joseph and Mary in mind when he made the decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. He didn’t know that his order would force this family to travel close to Mary’s due date. He didn’t know and he didn’t care.

Actions often have unintended consequences. The ripple effect of one small decision can be felt throughout a community or throughout a lifetime.

The Bible is full of small, human stories that take place on the edges of great political upheavals. The great classical histories hardly mention these stories at all. We know about Mary and Joseph and their census-travel because of what comes next: the birth of Jesus. But untold numbers of people would have been affected by this census. Taxes would have been adjusted, sending some families into poverty and others on a path toward wealth. Levies would conscript soldiers to enlarge Caesar’s armies. Revolution would spark in Judea. Political power would shift and bend and sway.

One small decision. Huge consequences. Maybe you’ve experienced this yourself. You take a new job, you put something on the calendar for the weekend, you volunteer for a committee. And it turns out what you thought was a small decision had unexpected downstream impact—maybe for the better, maybe for the worse. But that realization that small decisions can have unintended consequences can shake us up a bit.

What do we do in the face of the potential for our decisions to have tremendous unintended consequences? We could freeze and try to avoid making any decisions at all (which is itself a decision). We could become hyper-controlling, attempting to discern all potential outcomes. Or we could seek the path of wisdom and strive to walk in step with the Spirit.

Where have you seen small decisions have unintended consequences? How do you respond to the potential for your decisions to have unintended consequences?