This Is Our Father's World
- Tecumseh Cove
- Jun 11
- 3 min read
June 11, 2025
Leadership Notes
What a week. First, many thanks to Tom Hawkins for preaching on June 8. It makes for a relaxing, refreshing time away with family when I know worship is in such capable, Christ-centered hands. We truly are blessed!
As I reflect on our drive through Michigan, and our family time spent in Marquette, my thoughts return to that great old hymn, This is My Father’s World:
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.
This is my Father’s world:
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker's praise.
This is my Father's world:
He shines in all that's fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.
Our family is so blessed. To enjoy the beauty of our Father’s world and each other’s company are gifts beyond compare. I recently read Zephaniah 3:17, which made me think of these blessings:
The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.
God is so good to us, all the time. We are unworthy and undeserving, yet by His grace and mercy, here we are. This is our Father’s world!
To show that the glasses I wear are not rose-colored, last week was a weird one, to say the least. People be going crazy. And when people be going crazy, you know they need Jesus. Someone correctly observed that the riots in Los Angeles {among other places} are a Rorschach test:
One political persuasion sees in them protests for immigration reform.
Another political persuasion sees them as violent mobs of misfits, miscreants, and
malcontents funded primarily by outside agitators.
This is where the final verse of our opening hymn comes to mind:
This is my Father's world:
O let me ne'er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.
This is my Father's world:
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King: let the heavens ring!
God reigns; let earth be glad!
That’s the affirmation we need in a fallen, messed up world.
I love how Ralph Waldo Emerson captured it:
“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for
beauty is God’s handwriting – a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in
every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank
God, for it is a cup of blessing.”
And now, our Moment of Spurgeon:
HE IS GIVEN TO YOU FOR NOTHING, FREELY GIVEN TO YOU OF
GOD, AND WHOSOEVER WILL MAY HAVE HIM; AND IF YOU HAVE
HIM NOT, IT IS NOT BECAUSE HE HAS REJECTED YOU, FOR HE
HAS NEVER REJECTED ONE THAT HAS COME TO HIM, BUT
BECAUSE YOU HAVE REJECTED HIM.
What a blessing it is to live in our Father’s world. What a joy to share life with those we love. What a privilege to contribute to the beauty of our little corner of our Father’s world.
With Much Love and Affection,
Richard
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