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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Letto says:
It is truly beautiful to the eyes sweet to ears and filling to the soul.
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In worship.
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In adoration.
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Matt Rouse says:
Wow!! God is unbelievably powerful! With one word for his mouth mountains crumble, the dead are raised, I who was dead in sin am now alive and at rest 😃 If anyone can be considered trust worts even when we don’t understand, it’s God!
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My attempts to please God are like an ant trying to please me multiplied out by infinity. I don’t know why we think we can earn anything from our God who moves mountains with a word. He doesn’t need us to accomplish good because he is he definition of good. He just wants us to love Him because he knows that is what will satisfy us.
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To have a relationship with an all powerful God is an amazing thing. When we let go of our power and rest in His we are in a place of security like no other! Earthly powers will tremble when he comes back!
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Isaac Jones says:
Mans rightful place is glorifying God with praise and devotion. Man should bask in awe and adoration of God.bFrom a right understanding of God we should let obedience and disciple flow out like a might river in accordance to what we receive: the torrent of Gods Spirit.
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God has made all, is above all, and exists outside of all. God is worthy of awe because He is bigger and more glorious than anything we can see or touch. God made everything and is greater than everything.
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God is good and greater than man; man should go to God for hope, and salvation.
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I will respond in a prayer of acknowledgement.
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Heavenly God and gracious Father,
Thank you for opening my mind to begin understanding how great you are. Father you are more beautiful than the starts and more powerful than the ocean. You are more imposing that a mountain or a torrent waterfall. God you are great and all nature proclaims your greatness. Glory to God who is seated on the throne. His is all might and dominion and authority. Gracious God reveal yourself to me. Help me to see that I may worship you rightly; in Jesus name,
Amen -
Braden Mcalister says:
This teaches me that since God sent his only son to die on a cross for our sins that we need to give it all to God to praise him for he made a way to heaven for us.
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This teaches me that God is so big and so beautiful that simply just singing isn’t enough. We need to give our entire bodies to him including our souls which should sing out to him in praise.
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I will find were my soul sings and rejoice in it. I will give my all to God every day and praise him always.
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This teaches me that man is a piece of God’s plan and that we should give our all to God.
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I will pray for the lord to speak to me and show me where to find the spot where my soul will sing and also I will pray for strength to be constant in God and not fall from the word of God.
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andrew says:
His majesty is immeasurable and His glory is inconceivable. His goodness is impossible to compare with anything on this earth, but this earth shows His goodness so very well. He is worthy of praise and He deserves all glory.
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Lord, allow my soul to sing loudly. bring me to my knees every single time i think of your grace and your goodness. thank you for your Son. thank you for loving me enough to save me. thank you for giving me much more than i deserve. thank you, God.
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Tom Macias says:
It is the evidence of his love. He made this beautiful place for us. Gave us everything and we squandered it. Then he gave even beyond that and sent his son to die for us. To pay our debt so that he could be close to us again.
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We take this glorious gift of our world and even further, our salvation, for granted. He paid the ultimate price for us and we don’t even realize. How poorly we treat the earth and our fellow man speaks to how little we understand what we’ve been given.
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