April 8, 2009

How Great Thou Art

Read Psalm 8

Since I joined the Boy Scouts in 1960, I've enjoyed the great outdoors. I grew to love hiking (don't do much of that any more) and camping (still do it and have lots of fun). I always appreciate the beauty of nature, although I don't usually take time to reflect on the vastness of our universe and our part in it. Who am I kidding? Do I ever really think that way when I'm out in the woods? Well...not often.

In the early 90's I was privileged to take two week-long backpacking trips to beautiful Isle Royale national park. I have a very vivid memory of being awakened in the middle of one night by the excited and somewhat awestruck voices of my fellow hikers urging me and others to come out and look at the sky. If you know me, you know I value my "sack time," and I was thinking, "These guys woke me up. This had better be good."

It was not merely good. I had been awakened so that I could enjoy the most dazzling display of northern lights I had ever seen. Patterns would appear low in the sky near one horizon and then sparkle with blue and green and yellow as they raced across the sky toward the opposite horizon. I lay on my back on the dock at the "Daisy Farm" campsite, watching as shimmering curtains of multicolored lights undulated across the sky.

As I gazed, yes, in wonder, at the amazing display of celestial pyrotechnics, words and a familiar melody eased softly into my conscious thought: "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. 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!"

If I could've remembered more of the words I'd have started singing right there on the dock, but I couldn't, so that first verse just kept playing in my head as I hummed it softly.

As we approach the season of Lent, I am now reminded of the words to the second verse of that song, "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."

Since that night at Daisy Farm, I've had ample additional opportunities to gaze "in awesome wonder" at the world around me. On a sailboat in Lake Huron, or on the beach at the tip of Michigan's thumb, I've looked skyward to see the greatness of our tiny corner of creation. Each time I do, four words gently remind me of our creator, as I invariably think, "How great thou art!"

Fred Van de Putte (from March 15, 2002)