Where did that lake come from?

People passing through Tucson, Arizona, must have wondered that when they saw Lake Marana. It was brand-new. It was in the middle of the desert. The lake formed when an old gravel pit used for hiking and playing disc golf flooded. Soon birds and wildlife—and people hoping to see birds and wildlife—flocked to the lake.

You don’t see a lake appear every day. More often, you see lakes disappearing. That can cause problems. In order to live, people need lots and lots of water. They need water to drink, to keep themselves clean, and to cook with.

If you have four people in your family, you might use as much as 400 gallons of water in just one day! Imagine how much water a power plant or farm needs to function! Do you live close to any disappearing—or at least shrinking—lakes? Owens Lake is in California. It used to be 50 feet deep in places. Then its waters were redirected to flow into an aqueduct. Now it measures only three feet deep!

Because of drought, Nevada’s Lake Mead is at a level lower than has ever been recorded. Africa’s Lake Chad has shrunk by 95 percent because people have used so much of its water. The Aral Sea—between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan—used to be a very large lake. Thanks to irrigation, it now looks more like a collection of ponds. Just like at Lake Poopó, people living near the Aral Sea once lived by fishing but had to leave their boats behind.

Disappearing lakes can interrupt people’s lives. They can force people to move away. They can take business away from a place, causing it to become poor. But God knows what His Earth and His people need. Everything good—water, air, and all that people need to live—comes from Him.

Ask rain from the Lord in the season of the spring rain, from the Lord who makes the storm clouds, and He will give them showers of rain. — Zechariah 10:1