A Storm. A Missionary. And a Hymn That Traveled the World.

Some songs are written to become hits.

Others seem to find their way into the world one piece at a time.

“How Great Thou Art” began with a storm.

In the 1880s, Swedish preacher and poet Carl Boberg experienced the power and beauty of nature in a way he couldn’t forget. A violent thunderstorm swept through, bringing thunder and lightning before giving way to calm skies and the sounds of nature around him.

Boberg saw something more than weather.

He saw the power of God.

The experience inspired him to write a Swedish poem called “O Store Gud” — “O Great God.” It was published in 1886 and eventually joined with a Swedish melody.

But the song’s journey was only beginning.

It traveled across borders and languages—from Swedish into German and then Russian.

Decades later, an English missionary named Stuart K. Hine encountered the Russian version while he and his wife, Mercy, were doing missionary work in Eastern Europe.

And then something remarkable happened.

Hine didn’t simply translate the hymn word for word.

He lived experiences that became part of it.

In 1934, while traveling through the Carpathian Mountains preaching and distributing Bibles, Hine found himself surrounded by enormous mountains as thunder echoed through them.

He looked at the creation around him and considered the power of the Creator.

Those experiences helped shape the opening portions of the English hymn.

Later, walking through forests and hearing birds singing among the trees, Hine found another piece of the song taking shape.

But then the story became much deeper.

While distributing Scripture from village to village, Hine learned about a village where a Bible had been left behind years earlier by a Russian soldier.

For years it apparently sat unread because the villagers couldn’t read it.

Eventually, one woman learned.

She began slowly reading the Bible aloud while other villagers gathered around her.

Hine arrived as people were hearing about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and responding emotionally to what they were hearing about God’s love and sacrifice.

That experience helped inspire the verse centered on something far greater than mountains, thunder or stars:

The Cross.

Creation showed Hine the power of God.

Calvary showed him the love of God.

Years later, after World War II, Hine encountered displaced refugees in Britain. One man told him about being separated from his Christian wife back in Russia. He had since come to faith himself but feared she might never know what had happened to him.

His hope was that one day they would meet again when Christ returned.

That longing helped inspire the hymn’s final great movement:

Christ is coming back.

In 1949, Hine published his English version of “How Great Thou Art.”

But the song still wasn’t finished traveling.

During the 1950s, it became closely associated with the evangelistic campaigns of Billy Graham, where George Beverly Shea’s performances helped introduce it to enormous audiences.

Then countless other voices carried it forward.

Church choirs.

Country singers.

Gospel groups.

Ordinary people sitting in wooden pews.

And eventually Elvis Presley, whose recording of “How Great Thou Art” became the title track of his 1967 gospel album and earned him his first Grammy Award.

Think about the journey.

A thunderstorm in Sweden.

A poem.

A melody.

Different countries.

Different languages.

A missionary riding through the Carpathian Mountains.

Villagers discovering Scripture.

Refugees separated from the people they loved.

Billy Graham’s crusades.

Elvis Presley.

And finally millions of ordinary believers singing the same message.

But perhaps that’s why the song has survived.

It isn’t really about the singer.

It isn’t about Carl Boberg.

It isn’t about Stuart Hine.

It isn’t about Elvis.

It’s about God.

Look at the stars.

Listen to the thunder.

Walk through the mountains.

Stand beneath the trees.

Then look beyond creation toward the Cross.

The message becomes difficult to miss.

Creation shows His power.
The Cross shows His love.
And eternity will reveal His glory.

More than a century after that Swedish poem was written, people around the world are still lifting their voices with the same realization:

Our God is greater than anything we can see, anything we can build, and anything this world could ever contain.

And sometimes all it takes is a storm to remind us.

— Restored Life After