"So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate." (Genesis 3:6)

Like Adam and Eve, most of us live our lives without any conscious thought of the consequences of the choices we make. We take decisions and effect various actions on a continuous basis as if these things are isolated events of life. The truth of the matter is that every human behaviour is dynamically linked to numerous other events in what I call the relational web of life. No thought, speech, or action, by doing them or by failing to do them, is an isolated end unto itself. All occurrences are caused and will also be (part of) the cause of many other occurrences - and these will be in all the strands of the web, physical, social and spiritual.

How limited could the thoughts of Adam and Eve have been! Indeed, what were they thinking? - that they could ignore the words of their Creator and Benefactor and that would be it? No consequences??!!! Or that God did not really mean what He warned them about? I like to imagine that if they had given due consideration to the consequences of disobeying God, they might have exercised great restraint and refrained from eating the forbidden fruit (which they did rather too easily)

In the final analysis, history is merely the report sheet of the consequences of human action and inaction.

Concerning the recent past, I think if Muammar Gaddafi had given proper thought and action to the would-be consequences of his arrogance in handling the Libyan contribution to the Arab spring, he might have taken an entirely different path. But despite the benefit of the Egyptian experience, he stubbornly decided to despise his own people, believing they were absolutely incapable of dishing out unpalatable consequences to him. He had obviously overrated the mollifying effect of his jamahiriya welfarism on the resolve of a people fed up with dictatorship. If only he had permitted himself to be eased off when the ovation was still on. He might even have gotten a little whiff of a pan-African Mandela mystique. But he decided to talk of a "last bullet" - which dutifully came to him. Consequences.

Currently, much rhetoric and drama is playing out globally - Ukraine, ISIS, Palestine, Executive Order, Ferguson, and of course, Iran and her dance with the P5+1. Does any of the players seriously imagine there would not be proper consequences beyond the current power games?

Finally, I want to believe that if you too would just pause to consider and reconsider the consequences of your actions (or lack of action), current and in future, you may begin to see reason to follow a path quite different from the one you have charted. Like you my brother or sister in the Lord, who is yet to accept that the Lord's word are "laws" by which we must live day-to-day and not merely nice suggestions to theoretise about.

Or you too, my brother or sister outside the Lord, it is yet another moment and opportunity to ask yourself, "Why am I still not in a personal relationship with Jesus?" "Have I considered the consequences of this neglect?" "What will be my excuse when the consequences come?"

To all, let us stop living our lives as if there will not be consequences of our choices. There, surely, are consequences, both temporal and eternal.

God bless us all.