By Barnabas Piper
Does your soul ever sing? That phrase sounds a bit odd. We sing in the car when a favorite tune comes on. We sing the national anthem at sporting events. We sing in church (sometimes). We say that good news is music to our ears and the sound of bacon frying is sweet music too. But do our souls sing?
That’s the refrain of “How Great Thou Art”— “Then sings my soul…”
But what does that mean?
My guess is that each of us knows what it means even if it is not the phrase we’ve used. Maybe we’ve never put words to the experience of the soaring, lifting, and filling of the soul—to the passion and joy that sometimes wells up in us— or maybe we can’t put words to it. But each verse of this hymn paints a picture of those things that might make a soul sing.
Verse one looks at the cosmos, the whole universe. It sees the power and bigness and majesty of God’s creation expanding beyond our sight, bigger than our comprehension. I think about lying in a canoe at night in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota, staring at a sky so full of stars that it’s nearly as bright as the dawn. That makes my soul sing.
Verse two focuses in on the tangible creation—the sounds of birds and beautiful mountain views. I think of climbing House Mountain in East Tennessee, scrambling over boulders and pulling myself up on saplings and over fallen trees so that I could step onto a rocky outcrop and see the view of the valley below. The breeze cooled me and the quiet was so still that I could hear my soul sing then too.
While those verses offer hints of what it is that fills our soul, verses 3 and 4 dive deep into what the song of our souls really is. Yes, God created a majestic beautiful world that makes us feel and yearn, but we don’t find fullness in that. He did something more. He sent His Son to take our sins from us, to suffer and die on our behalf, to bear the burden we could not bear. Indeed, “I scarce can take it in.”
But that is not all.
The final glorious stanza of the hymn reveals the final glorious stanza of God’s mission – Christ shall come and will be greeted with shouts of praise. We will “bow in humble adoration” because His glory will be so great. Wrongs will be made right. Sin and pain will be abolished. There is only one response to this: “My God, how great Thou Art!”
What makes your soul sing? Don’t stop at the song of nature, no matter how beautiful it is. Find the truest soul song there is in the work Jesus Christ has done for you.
Written by Barnabas Piper
How Great Thou Art
Carl Gustav Boberg, 1885; Stuart K. Hine, c. 1920
O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed:
Refrain
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
When through the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees,
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur,
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze:
Refrain
And when I think that God, his Son not sparing,
Sent him to die, I scarce can take it in,
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.
Refrain
When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then I shall bow in humble adoration,
And there proclaim, My God, how great thou art!
For an added layer of worship during reading plan, we’ve created a Spotify playlist for Hymns. You can find the complete HRT Hymns Playlist here, or listen to the first track on the player below. Enjoy!
87 thoughts on "How Great Thou Art"
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Kyle says:
Dear Lord,
I am so overwhelmed by Your grace, Your love, Your compassion– I am overwhelmed by You, Lord. I am humbled to be Your child, and because of that I want to give you everything. Lord, take everything from me if that’s Your will, if that’s what You want. The only thing I want is to know You and do everything for Your glory. Lead me to Your calling, and when I’m there let my soul cry relentlessly “HOW GREAT THOU ART!” -
Andrew C says:
God loves us. And He is worthy to be praised. He sent His son as a perfect sacrifice so that we may be viewed as righteous in His eyes. That’s a God who loves His children.
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That God is good and He loves us unconditionally. He even allow our souls to sing so that we can praise Him even more.
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Find what makes my soul sing. Analyze if what makes it sing is really what should make It sing.
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That all too often we believe our “soul sings” for very unworthy things. Our soul should sing for The Lord and what He has done.
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Joel Selby says:
I am God’s creation; He made me with His own hands and according to His own design. He knows me and wants me to be reconciled to Him; He jealously wants me to value Him over anything else in His created world.
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My God is big; bigger than the whole cosmos, which He created with His own hands and by His own design. He also truly cares about me—He cares so much that He sent His only son to come and die for me.
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I will respond to His grandeur by humbling myself to Him daily, repenting of my sin and forsaking it, in order that He may be glorified by everything I do.
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The good news for me is that so God desires communion with me, His creation, that He sent Jesus to this earth to atone for my sin, that I would have the perfect opportunity to be reconciled to Him.
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Nathan says:
I will put my trust I God and see his faithfulness. I will open my eyes and see, open my mouth and taste how good God is.
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Man sometimes gets caught up in worshiping creation, over the creator.
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God gives us true love and satisfaction. Nature (God’s Art) is beautiful and amazing, but it doesn’t give life to us. The only one that can guard us and guide us and care for us is God!
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God’s promises hold true. He will guard us. He won’t ever let us down.
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Lord, what you created is beautiful. I love being in your presence, and seeing your beauty. You won’t ever let me down, and I’ll lean on your promises. Open my eyes to see your beauty and goodness in my life.
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Jantzen says:
God’s love is a reckless love in that he was willing to sacrifice his only perfect son for unworthy sinners.
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It’s beautiful. It reveals our hope in Christ.
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Look for what makes my soul sing then remember to worship the creator through it.
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We must adore Him who saves us. Our soul shall sing if God has truly made his home in us.
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Letto says:
That our proper response is to be filled with wonder and adoration of all that the creator has formed.
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That he is truly all that is great.
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