Water is Everything

There are a lot of people in the southern US these days that have mixed feelings about water. Essence of life or weapon of destruction? Take your pick.

But water is still the thing we need. You can live without food for a month, water for only a few days. Most of our bodies are water. We drink it, cook with it, wash with it. Water is second only to the air we breathe.

Psalm 104 in the Bible sees God as the tap-keeper for the water of this world:

You make the springs pour water into ravines,
so streams gush down from the mountains.
They provide water for all the animals,
and the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
The birds nest beside the streams
and sing among the branches of the trees.
You send rain on the mountains from your heavenly home,
and you fill the earth with the fruit of your labor.

Of course, water could be a freak of evolution, a chance by-product of forces of energy, a happy coincidence that made life possible. We don't really need God if we can turn on the tap ourselves. Maybe Psalm 104's happy romp through the delights of water is just poetry, based on nothing. Maybe there is no "You" who makes the springs pour water into the ravines.

Of course, that makes a precarious world when the springs dry up. Most people don't need God until the tap turns off.