March 19, 2026 - Good Morning! It’s Thursday, March 19. Our series praising God for His beautiful creation continues today as we approach the first day of spring - tomorrow!
Most of our Daily Devotion readers live here in Shelby County Texas, but there are numerous readers all around the Lone Star State. And a few who are even farther afield. One faithful reader in Yakima, Washington is over 2000 miles away! Thank God for the internet, where anybody, anywhere, can connect with a message from the Word.
My niece’s husband is an educator and pastor (and faithful reader) who lives in upstate New York, near Niagara Falls. I’ll save you a trip to Google Maps - that’s over 1300 miles away. It’s a beautiful part of America, and in 1882, a young minister came to this area to pastor his first church. Maltbie Babcock would often take a break from his ministry work to go walking in God’s creation. He would say to his wife, “I’m going out to my Father’s world!”
Twenty years later, Babcock, then pastor of the mighty and historic Brick Church in New York City - tragically took his own life. He had suffered for years from what was then called “melancholia”. Today we know it as clinical depression. After his death, his wife went through his papers and found a poem that he had written twenty years before, after one of those long walks. She had it published and soon after it was set to music and became a hymn that has found its way into just about every hymn book. A hymn that has found its way into the heart of just about every worshipper. A hymn that praises God for His beautiful creation.
This is my Father’s world and to my listening ears
All nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world, I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas, His hand the wonders wrought.
Meet you back here tomorrow,
David
cindertex50@yahoo.com
