Water runs through Scripture like a current. It carries an infant to safety, is the setting for miracles and encounters, frightens disciples in a storm and is Jesus’ image for the life God offers us.
The 2026 Season of Creation theme, “Living Water,” draws particularly from Ezekiel’s vision of a river bringing life wherever it flows. These biblical narratives invite us to see water in more than one way. God’s gift of water–existent even before light, when earth was yet without form–is a necessity shared by every living creature. Water teaches us about abundance, trust, interconnectedness and our responsibility toward one another and God’s creation.
The Celebration Guide invites Christians to move from contemplation to immersion and finally to action: receiving God’s gifts and becoming participants in the healing of creation.
Here are seven Scripture stories to help us respond to that invitation.
Moses on the River: Trusting What We Cannot Control
“She put the child into it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the Nile.”
Exodus 2:3, NABRE
Long before Moses leads God’s people through the waters of the Red Sea, his own story begins on water.
His mother places him in a basket among the reeds of the Nile because keeping him at home is no longer safe. The river is a place of enormous uncertainty. She cannot know where the current will take him or what will happen next.
Yet the water that represents danger also brings him to his rescuers.
Creation frequently reminds us of how little control we actually possess over it. Rivers overflow. Rain does not follow our schedules. Drought exposes our dependence. In spite of our advanced technology, human beings remain creatures who depend upon systems of life far more powerful than ourselves.
Moses’ story invites us to replace the illusion of control with trust, responsibility and prayerful attention.
Read: Exodus 2:1–10
Reflect: What am I trying desperately to control? What might faithful trust look like instead?
Live it: Visit or learn about a river near you. Where does it begin? Where does it flow? What communities and ecosystems depend upon it? Pray for the people who work to protect it.
Water from the Rock: Remembering What We Depend On
“Strike the rock, and the water will flow from it for the people to drink.”
Exodus 17:6, NABRE
In the arid wilderness, the thirst of the Israelites continues to grow. Springs of water are no longer scenery. Water now means survival.
Most of us rarely experience that urgency. We turn on a faucet and expect clean water to appear. That convenience is a tremendous gift, but it can also disguise our dependence on and interconnectedness with our sources of water and each other.
The Israelites’ thirst reminds us that there are people for whom safe water is not guaranteed. The pollution of our waters, an ecological degradation, leads to the degradation of human, animal and plant well-being. Every human being, every animal, every insect, every plant and tree are each between 50%-90% water.
Whatever the source of our drinking water, it is literally coursing through the cells of our bodies. Polluted rivers, droughts and damaged watersheds are not simply environmental problems, they are existential concerns with serious consequences to human health, food supplies, forced migration, poverty levels, distributive justice and the interconnected web of all of creation.
The Season of Creation guide [PDF] encourages Christians to see water not merely as a commodity but as a gift that sustains the whole community of life.
Read: Exodus 17:1–7
Reflect: Has easy access to water numbed me to the life-sustaining gift that water is? What would it be like to give thanks each time I turn on a faucet?
Live it: Find out where your drinking water comes from and some of the forces that threaten its supply. Then, choose one realistic way to waste less water this season.
The Multitudes Are Fed: Discovering Abundance Through Sharing
“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.”
John 6:9, NABRE
A large crowd follows Jesus near the Sea of Galilee. Jesus calls the attention of the apostles to a problem: thousands of hungry people and no possibility of providing for them.
Then, the apostle Andrew notices what is available.
A boy has five loaves and two fish.
It doesn’t look like much.
Yet, Jesus receives what is offered, gives thanks and feeds the multitude.
This story challenges a culture built around the assumption that more is always better. More possessions. More consumption. More convenience. More resources for ourselves.
Jesus begins somewhere else. He notices what is already present. He gives thanks. What has been received becomes something to share.
That is a deeply ecological way of living. Creation itself teaches us that resources do not exist for themselves, they are shared among the life-sustaining systems of the earth. Water, soil, forests and oceans do not belong to any one generation or one group of people; they provide what we need for life.
Read: John 6:1–15
Reflect: Do I approach life primarily from scarcity — there will never be enough — or from gratitude — what have I already received that I can share?
Live it: Before buying something new this week, pause. Ask whether you truly need more. Could you repair, reuse, borrow or share instead?
Jesus Walks on Water: Finding Courage in the Storm
“Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”
Matthew 14:27, NABRE
The disciples are on the water when conditions become frightening. The wind is strong and their boat is being tossed by the waves.
Then Jesus comes toward them across the water.
Peter does something extraordinary: he gets out of the boat.
For a moment, he walks toward Jesus. Then he notices the strength of the wind, becomes frightened and begins to sink.
Many people experience something similar when confronting environmental problems. Climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss and water insecurity can feel like enormous challenges. We doubt whether our individual actions can possibly matter.
Fear can lead to paralysis.
Peter’s story offers us another possibility. Faith means that when we do not know exactly how everything will turn out, we will take the next faithful step.
The Season of Creation similarly calls Christians not merely to recognize ecological problems from a safe distance, but to become participants in their healing and restoration.
Read: Matthew 14:22–33
Reflect: What problem feels so large that I have convinced myself my actions cannot matter?
Live it: Choose one step outside your ecological comfort zone. Join a cleanup, contact a local representative about a conservation issue, begin composting, plant native species or participate in a parish creation-care effort.
Don’t solve everything. Take one step. Pray for the people who work to protect it.
The Woman at the Well: Discovering What We Really Thirst For
“The water I shall give will become in [you] a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
John 4:14, NABRE
Jesus meets a Samaritan woman beside Jacob’s well.
She has come because she needs water. But as their conversation unfolds, Jesus reveals another kind of thirst to her.
This is what makes the story especially powerful during the Season of Creation: the physical and spiritual meanings of water meet at the same well.
We thirst for actual water to live. We also thirst for belonging, meaning, forgiveness, peace and God.
The encounter energizes the woman. She came carrying a water jar to be filled, but after meeting Jesus, she leaves it behind in order to run to tell others what she has discovered at the well.
She had come looking for water from the well, and left the well eager to become a messenger of living water.
Read: John 4:5–30, 39–42
Reflect: What am I thirsty for beneath the busyness and consumption of everyday life? Am I trying to satisfy a spiritual thirst with material things?
Live it: Make your first glass of water tomorrow a prayer. Before drinking it, pause and pray: “Christ, show me what I am truly thirsty for.”
Then remember the people and creatures who depend upon the same gift of water. Pray for the people who work to protect it.
Ezekiel’s River: Everything Lives Where the Water Flows
“Everything lives where the river goes.”
Ezekiel 47:9, NABRE
This passage provides the central image for the 2026 Season of Creation.
Ezekiel sees water flowing from the Temple. At first it is only a trickle. But as he follows it, the water grows ankle-deep, then knee-deep, then waist-deep until it becomes a river too deep to cross.
And wherever that river flows, life returns.
Trees grow. Fish become abundant. Fruit appears. Even damaged waters are renewed.
The Season of Creation Celebration Guide describes this as a vision of ecological healing and invites us to step into the water ourselves. We begin at the edge but God calls us to go deeper — from appreciation of creation toward participation in its restoration.
There is another hopeful detail here: the river begins as a small stream.
We can become discouraged because our actions seem insignificant compared with the scale of environmental problems. Ezekiel gives us a different image.
A trickle can become a river.
Read: Ezekiel 47:1–12
Reflect: Where does life need restoring in my community?
Live it: Find one local environmental need rather than thinking only about global problems. A polluted creek, neglected park, disappearing habitat or community lacking adequate green space may be your place to begin.
The River of Life: Living Toward God’s Future
“The river of life-giving water, sparkling like crystal.”
Revelation 22:1, NABRE
The Bible begins with water and ends with water.
In Revelation’s final vision, a river flows from the throne of God. The tree of life grows beside it and its leaves bring healing.
The imagery echoes Ezekiel’s river. God’s final word for creation is not abandonment but life, restoration and healing.
Christian hope, then, should affect how we live now.
If we believe that the future God offers us is life-giving, we should choose actions that give life.
If we believe that the future God offers us includes healing, we should repair what has been damaged.
If God’s gifts are meant for all of us, we should ask whether our patterns of consumption leave enough for others.
The Season of Creation guide describes a movement from Contemplation to Immersion to Sending Out. Simply said, we acknowledge God’s gifts, we actively engage with creation and then allow that relationship to change how we live.
Read: Revelation 22:1–5
Reflect: What would I do differently if I truly believed that healing, rather than destruction, is our divinely human destiny?
Live it: Choose one creation-care practice to continue after the Season of Creation ends. Make it small enough to sustain but meaningful enough to change something.
Follow the Water
Taken together, these stories tell us something important.
Moses on the Nile teaches us trust.
Water from the rock reminds us of our dependence.
The feeding of the multitudes challenges us to receive with gratitude and share what we have.
Walking on water calls us to move beyond fear.
The woman at the well asks what we truly thirst for.
Ezekiel’s river shows us what restoration can look like.
Revelation’s river of life gives us a destination: creation healed and overflowing with life.
Perhaps that gives us a simple practice for this Season of Creation.
Every time you encounter water, notice it.
When you drink, give thanks.
When you see it wasted or polluted, protect it.
When you learn that someone lacks it, seek justice.
When you stand beside a river, lake or ocean, remember that you belong to creation, too.
And when the problems facing our common home seem too large, remember Ezekiel’s little stream.
It didn’t begin as a river.
It began with water flowing out into the world.
The question for us this Season of Creation is not simply, “How can we save the Earth?”
Perhaps it is something more personal:
Where is God’s living water flowing — and am I willing to step into it?
Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE). Season of Creation themes and reflections are informed by the 2026 Season of Creation Celebration Guide: Living Water.
