Then sings my soul...

I have a wide and varied selection of music on my ipod and am fortunate enough to be able to plug it in to the stereo in my car (The Red Dragon). Consequently there are many unfortunates who get to see me every morning mouthing along to my latest download or old favourite (currently 'Louie Louie' by Toots and the Maytals). They may often see me also mouthing loud 'Amens' to sermons downloaded from www.sermonaudio.com - I'm on a Ken Ham and John Whitcomb creation trip at the moment. I digress... back to my point.


Today on my way to and from work I recalled singing 'How Great Thou Art' at my Grampa's funeral back in 2008 and had a quick shuffle on the ipod to see if I had it... sure enough I did. Well... 40 miles, several recitations and a sore throat later I had had ample time to consider it's wonderful wording... more wonderful when you consider it that its original version was written by a Mr Carl Gustaf Boberg (1859 - 1940) in Swedish as a poem. It was later translated into German, then a Russian publication of the German text was released. From that Mr Stuart K Hine translated the first 3 verses of the Russian version into English while working as a missionary in the Ukraine. And now we have what I heard the Candolir Male Voice Choir sing (with what sounded like some help from Big Bryn Terfyl) today!

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!

.

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.

.

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 then proclaim:

"My God, how great Thou art!"

.

.

If you're a Christian and those words don't do something for you, you need a slap round the bonce with a hefty leather bound pulpit bible (KJV naturally). The bit that stirs me every time I listened was 'And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.' What words! As I heard a wonderful Welsh(is-cised... not born unfortunately) preacher once say with an enthused look on his face to the congregation at a west Wales church "We're marching to Zion!... isn't that wonderful?!"

I think so. Do you?