I met Paul Baloche in 2019 with my husband, Sam, during a seminar for songwriters. Paul wrote a lot of worship songs that were sung when I was a kid, like “Open the Eyes of My Heart,” “Hosanna,” and “Above All.”

During his talk, Paul spoke at length about “Above All.” Most of his songs start either as prayers or from little thoughts written down in journals, and in this case, the verse was written out of the titular words jotted down in a notebook. The verses were a meditation on the greatness and wonder of Jesus; about how His Godship is so high and lofty over us and His majesty is awesome. The song originally had a different chorus and it was sung that way for a while but never felt right.

Did you know the hymn “All Creatures of our God and King” is turning 800 years old? Okay, maybe not the hymn itself, but the poem the hymn was adapted from is.

The poem, written by Francis of Assisi in the final years of his life, was written in the year 1225. Francis had a long ministry of helping the poor, even going so far as to say he was married to “Lady Poverty” before he devoted his life to the Catholic church.