How Great Thou Art

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

The words from the beautiful hymn “How Great Thou Art” came to me as I was walking my dog the other day. I just started singing them and worshipping God. Such a sense of joy and peace came over me. It made me realize that this is what our goal should be at this time of turmoil and uncertainty in our world. We worship a Great God and He is so faithful and just. We look at the world and think that things are so messed up and unfixable that it makes us feel sad and hopeless. This is exactly the time that we should look up and remember that our Great Saviour and God, Jesus Christ, died for us and we are not to worry. He is bigger than anything that is happening in the world. “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised…” (Psa. 48:1). We may feel overwhelmed but He is not. The knowledge of the greatness and wonder of God fills us with a longing to worship Him and to honour and glorify Him. “For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hands are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker.” (Psa. 95:3-6).

In our modern world today even we Christians tend to minimize the greatness of God. We look to Him as our personal Saviour and how He is working in our lives but we want to keep Him at that level. We do not speak of Him with reverence and majesty as the great God of the Universe who made all things. I am so uncomfortable when people flippantly say “the guy upstairs” or “well, if there is a god”. This completely minimizes God and what He can do. We live in such a flippant culture today that we have a hard time thinking of anything as being great and majestic and unchangeable. We look at everything from man’s small point of view. This, though, is not how David speaks of God in Psa. 139: 1-4, 7-12, “O Lord, thou hast searched me, and know me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether…Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

This is not a time for us to become despondent and lose heart. The Lord is absolutely aware of the things that are happening on and to the earth. The prophet Isaiah quotes God as He speaks to the people of Judah, to counsel them to see the power of their God, “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?” (Isa. 40:12). God is not afraid of the nations who threaten us. “Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing…All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.” (Isa. 40:15-17). Our great God will deal with our enemies. They are fearful to us but they are nothing to Him. “Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies. (Psa. 108:13). All of our enemies who think that they can have all the power and rule the world will be brought down. Although we think they are powerful, to God they are nothing. “That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.” (Isa. 40:23).

We must learn to acknowledge how great and majestic is our God and Saviour. He is not like us. He is not weak and powerless as we are. He is the Almighty God. “To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? Saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.” (Isa. 40:25-26). Our mighty God who loves us beyond anything we can imagine has not forgotten us. We must fully acknowledge His majesty and greatness. We must stop speaking in such an off handed manner about our God and Saviour and learn to speak of Him with great wonder and glory. We must meditate on His majesty and wait on the Lord.

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isa. 40:31).