Read: Psalm 36:5-9

Reflect: It’s mid-February in central Montana. For a few days this week, we’ll experience some typical winter weather: near-zero cold, an inch or two of snow on the ground. But for most of this winter, we’ve had unseasonably warm weather with little or no moisture. Conversations around the coffee pot invariably include speculation on what this means for crops and livestock, and for the coming wildfire season. Water is essential to our existence no matter where we live, but we feel its absence more acutely the closer we live to the land.

The psalmist reminds us that God’s gifts extend not only to human beings, but to all plants and animals and to the earth itself. God’s steadfast love provides for the whole of creation: sunshine and oxygen, nutrients from the soil, and water – the fountain of life. May we be worthy stewards of such precious gifts!

Prayer: God, whose Spirit moved over the deep: We thank you for the gift of water – the waters on the earth, and under the earth, the waters above us, and within us. Make us mindful of the care of all the planet’s water, that it may richly sustain life for us and for those who come after us; through Jesus Christ, source of living water. Amen. (from All Creation Sings, p. 47. ©2020 Augsburg Fortress, used by permission.)

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