Christian Living

Delicate Balances

by Terry Barlow
02/18/13
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A recent visit to an Atlanta's acquarium brought a stern reminder of the consequences of not thoroughly thinking through our decisions. Someone in Florida carelessly flushed some exotic fish down the toilet and this species now, having multiplied itself exponentially, is terrorizing marine life up and down the east coast as far north as New England. The local fish have no defense against it and it has no natural predator because is was never designed to inhabit those eastern waters in the first place. In another case the American bullfrog was introduced out in the western U.S. in the hope of solving one problem and now has over-run the environment to such an extent it is producing far worse problems than the one it was imported to solve. Not only do delicate balances exist ecologically they also exist in our families and communities. One thoughtless or even well-intended word or gesture can easily disrupt those balances and compound problems that were minor in comparison to the newly-produced ones. There is wisdom in being "quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger" as we all know from personal experience, some of us more painfully than others. My son-in-law said it well as we pondered these cases together in the acquarium, "Whenever man plays god (I hesitate to use a capital"G" in this instance) he always messes things up far worse than they ever were!"