Respect the Water thought for the week

IT’S great to see so many people getting out on the water this summer and enjoying our wonderful coastline.

However, as I watch them I hear in the back of my head the RNLI slogan ‘Respect the Water.’

A recent report details how many of the devastating 254 accidental drownings in UK in 2020 could have been avoided if simple precautions had been taken, like wearing a life jacket, carrying a phone, limiting alcohol intake and checking weather and tides.

Other voices also call us to respect the water such as Surfers Against Sewage, the grassroots movement protecting the UK’s coastlines.

How vital their work is, as confirmed by the recent £90m fine given to Southern Water for deliberately pouring 20 billion litres of raw sewage into the sea.

The judge said this demonstrated “a shocking and wholesale disregard for the environment, for precious and delicate ecosystems and coastlines, for human health, and for fisheries and other legitimate businesses that operate in the coastal waters.”

How can we individually and corporately rediscover a respect for the seas and indeed for our entire planet earth?

The ancient wisdom writings give us some very helpful pointers.

The earth is not a resource to be exploited but an awesome act of creation, shared with us by a loving and all-powerful God.

By respecting creation and seeking God through it, we catch a sense of his loving purposes and can then join him in becoming creative agents for good.

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. (Psalm 24:1-2)