I’m a native Californian, born and reared one valley over from the East Bay Area of San Francisco. In my lifetime, California has been in a cycle of flood, fire, and drought. I remember the rains coming so heavily in the Pleasanton-Livermore valley that there would be a lake where there are now houses. Over the years, the cities have found ways to divert flood water into the creeks and reservoirs. I remember a flood in Northern California where the water was twenty feet above the highway and towns disappeared. We called it “heavy rain”, not an “atmospheric river”.
Lots of water brings lots of growth. Fields and hills are covered with grass. Forests have undergrowth. When the dry summer season comes, one carelessly tossed cigarette would catch and fire would sweep the land. I remember an enormous fire in Northern California that took thousands of acres of redwood trees. You can still see evidence of that fire now with a walk in the woods at a rest stop or driving along 101 to Oregon, though new growth has not reached the heights of the old growth which burned.
Californians have been talking the flood-drought cycle for years. We’ve yet to implement the voter-mandated building of more dams and systems to store water around the state and possibly pool water that would soak into the Central Valley and restore the depleted aquifers. Environmental groups have put a halt on any large water project. Regulations have piled up one upon another. We need to protect endangered species, but we also need to provide water for humanity and agriculture (our food).
Trillions of gallons of water runoff into the ocean. The agriculture-rich Central Valley is the source of drinking water for 27 million Californians and 3 million acres of (food) crops, but the uncaptured water races into the Pacific. Good does come from the runoff. Raging creeks and rivers wash pollutants away, helping to save fish like salmon. The water cleanses coastal fishing industries. It also deposits tons of sand on the beaches.
There’s an old saying: Waste not, want not. If we truly believe in climate change, shouldn’t we build structures and systems that will allow us to take full advantage of the resources God is giving us? Dams make energy which will be needed for all those electric cars.
Water is necessary for life. Our bodies are 60% water. The brain, blood, and heart are primarily water – 75%, 83%, 79% respectively. But all this isn’t just about the physical water – the H2O that our bodies or the food crops that need water to survive. We also need the Living Water, the spiritual water that pours through our souls, refreshing, nourishing, reviving, giving us eternal life. Do we stand in a deluge of teaching and then let it all go to waste like water into the sea? Or do we ponder on it, reserve it, let it sink it, let it do its work in us?
God warns of a time when there will be a drought of the Word of God, and we have seen our culture changing over the last few decades in an organized effort to remove God from schools, federal, state and local government, public forums, and even conversation.
Someday, we may cry out as the ancient mariner did, floating on a sea of saltwater – Water, water everywhere… and not a drop to drink.