How Great Thou Art

A devotional by Holly Worsley

If we are honest, none of us envisions a future marked by difficulty. We naturally anticipate goodness, connection, love, and lives that keep getting better. Yet live long enough, and storms will come. When they do, what will guide and strengthen you? What hope will hold you—even if the storm overtakes you?

Carl Boberg was a Swedish lay preacher, poet, and member of parliament who lived in the Swedish town of Mönsterås in the late 1800s. One day, as he walked along the coastline, the sky suddenly turned dark, and the waves grew. Boberg was overtaken by the storm and left completely exposed to its force. The storm's fierceness filled him with awe.

Then, almost as quickly as the storm had blown in, it began to pass. The sun broke through the dark clouds like hope bursting in, and in the distance, church bells began to ring. Boberg was filled with wonder, and the words of a poem began to form in his heart.

“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.”

The writer of Hebrews warns, “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away” (Hebrews 2:1, NIV). Boberg’s storm awakened wonder; Hebrews warns that without sustained attention; wonder can quietly give way to drift.

What do the riptide of the world’s beliefs and the world’s general fallenness rob us of? Wonder. Awe. The ability to observe the beauty around us and recognize our place in a vast universe.

Hebrews points us to God’s final word: Jesus. “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3, NIV). The cure for drift is to fix our eyes on Jesus, the living display of God’s very character.

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory. When did God’s people witness that glory? They saw it when Moses stood in wonder before the burning bush that was not consumed, and God revealed Himself as the “I Am.” They saw it when the cloud by day and the fire by night guided and comforted the Israelites. They saw it at the foot of Mount Sinai, when the Lord descended on the mountain: “On the morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled” (Exodus 19:16, NIV). They saw it again when Solomon dedicated the temple, and God’s glory filled it so powerfully that the people could not stand in His presence.

Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory—your hope, your anchor, and your strength in both the storms and the joys of life. Fix your eyes on Him, and let every season lead you to declare: To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

“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!”