Water Wars????

One of the books that I read this summer in entitled, When the Rivers Run Dry: Water - The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century. It is a fascinating look at rivers around the world and issues that are arising from over use of these rivers. Ever since I read the book and talked with some folks around Jacksonville, I have noticed as never before water issues in local papers wherever we have been. In Seattle, an editorial in the local paper mentioned the removing of old dams on rivers so that the salmon could run and fisheries (and therefore fisherman who depend on them for their livelihoods) could prosper. On the way home, the headline in the Atlanta paper after a red-eye flight was about the brewing water war between Georgia, Florida and Alabama over Lake Lanier. Then, this morning there's a report in the Times-Union about springs being tapped before they reach the St. Johns. The premise of the book is that even in water surplus areas (like our situation where we seem surrounded by water), water is going to become more of an issue each year. The issues range from water usage to water conservation, to water rights. The Bible talks about water as a gift from God as part of God's good created order and water even "co-operates" with God in creation (more on that interesting idea later). Thus, the question I think for us as Christians comes back to one of stewardship, that is, how to we care for and share this gift of God not as water "owners", but as "stewards" - that is, those entrusted by God to care for the world and its water. More later....