Another Hymn on my Mind

I’ve had this hymn echoing in my mind lately, rising and falling like a prayer breathed in creation’s rhythm. It’s not new, and it’s certainly not obscure, but perhaps its very familiarity invites us to hear it again. Sometimes the hymns we know best are the ones we need most.

How Great Thou Art
Carl Gustav Boberg (Swedish original, 1885)
English adaptation by Stuart K. Hine (1949)

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works Thy hands have made…
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee:
How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

The story behind How Great Thou Art is as sweeping as the hymn itself. Its journey begins in Sweden in 1885, when Carl Gustav Boberg, a pastor and poet, was walking home from church near Mönsterås. A sudden storm broke overhead—lightning, thunder, wind sweeping across the fields—and just as suddenly, it calmed. Boberg stepped into a world washed clean: birds singing, a rainbow forming over the bay, church bells tolling in the quiet evening.

That moment of awe became a nine stanza poem titled O Store Gud (“O Great God”), first published in 1886. It was later set to a Swedish folk melody and began its slow migration across languages—German, Russian, and finally English. Stuart K. Hine, a British missionary in the Carpathian Mountains, heard the Russian version sung by believers and adapted it, adding verses shaped by his own encounters with creation and the gospel.

The hymn’s structure mirrors the Christian life: creation, redemption, and consummation.

Creation: “When I in awesome wonder consider all the works Thy hands have made…”

Boberg’s storm and calm experience is woven directly into the first stanza. The hymn invites us to look—really look—at the world God has made. Not as scenery, but as revelation. As Paul writes, “His invisible attributes… have been clearly perceived… in the things that have been made” (Rom. 1:20).

The hymn slows us down. It asks us to wander through forest glades, listen to birdsong, feel mountain breezes, and let creation preach. It is a call to humility: we are small, and God is great.

And when the soul sees God’s greatness in creation, it sings.

Redemption: “And when I think that God, His Son not sparing…”

Hine added this stanza, shaped by his missionary work among people who knew suffering intimately. The hymn moves from creation’s grandeur to the cross’s glory. The God who thunders over mountains is the God who “sent Him to die—I scarce can take it in.”

Creation reveals God’s power. The cross reveals God’s heart.

This is the hinge of Christian worship: awe becomes adoration when the Creator becomes our Redeemer. The hymn refuses to let us stay in vague spirituality. It brings us to Calvary, where “my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin.”

Here the soul does not merely sing—it bows.

Consummation: “When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation…”

Like Spafford, Boberg and Hine looked forward to Christ’s return. The final stanza lifts our eyes from the cross to the coming King. It echoes 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17, where the Lord descends with a shout and believers rise to meet Him.

The hymn ends not with nature’s beauty or the cross’s mercy, but with the believer’s hope: “What joy shall fill my heart! ”

Creation amazes us. Redemption saves us. Consummation completes us.

And the soul sings again—this time forever.

How Great Thou Art is not merely a hymn of praise; it is a journey of faith. It leads worshipers through a widening vision of God—His world, His love, His return. It is pastoral in the best sense: it lifts burdened hearts, enlarges small horizons, and anchors weary believers in the greatness of God.

When life feels narrow, this hymn reminds us that God is not. When circumstances overwhelm, it reminds us that God is greater still. When sin accuses, it reminds us of the cross. When hope dims, it reminds us of the trumpet yet to sound.

It is a hymn for the woods, the valley, the hospital room, the funeral, the Sunday service, and the quiet morning when the soul needs to remember who God is.

We, too, can learn to let creation preach, let redemption comfort, and let hope steady us. We can join Boberg, Hine, and generations of believers in saying:

“Then sings my soul… ”

Because when we truly see God— in His world, in His Son, and in His promised return— there is only one fitting response:

How great Thou art.