O God whose strength is in the skies,1
Who commands lightning and hail, snow, clouds, and stormy wind,
And they fulfill Your word;
We bow to Your majesty expressed in the storm.
O Ruler of Rain,2 who causes the sky to give showers,
Who decrees the rain and waters the earth,
Who sends rainfall on the just and the unjust
That all the plants of the field may flourish,
Confirm Your weary people;
Water our souls with abundant raindrops of peace,
That we, too, my blossom and flourish.
O God of Glory, who cuts the path for the thunderstorm,3
Your voice thunders with power and majesty,
Shaking the wilderness and making the earth tremble.
Thunder and lightning explode from Your throne;
It is stormy all around You.
Our God comes, and You do not keep silent;
Glorious God, who spoke in thunder from Mount Sinai,
Who thunders marvelously with the voice of Your majesty,
You do wondrous things which we cannot comprehend.
Don’t be silent!
With Your thunderous voice,
Drown out the roar of the enemy of our souls!
Rout him and deliver us, for he is too strong for us.
O Distributor of Lightning,4
Who flashed from Mount Sinai and the people trembled,
You make a path for the lightning, and it lights up the world;
The earth sees and shudders.
Lightnings report to You and You send them forth,
Great lightning bolts to confuse and rout our enemy.
We join with creation and cry “Glory!” to the One
whose voice strikes with flashes of lightning,
shaking the wilderness and lighting up the world.
From Your throne of majestic splendor,
Give Your strength to Your people,
And grant us Your peace.
O God of the treasuries of snow and the storehouses of hail5,
You say to the snow, “Fall on the earth,”
You water and refresh the land with her flakes.
Come water and refresh us, we pray,
In all our dry and weary places where there is no water.
From Your storehouses of hail, You vindicated Your children,
Causing grievous hail to fall on the Egyptians,
Breaking every tree, crushing every herb, killing every unsheltered creature,
But shielding Your children from all harm.
We welcome Your sheltering hand in the midst of our storms.
Preserve us from the breaking, crushing, killing work
of the enemy of our souls.
O YHWH, Cloud Rider who makes thick clouds Your hiding place6,
You spoke to Moses from the cloud on Mount Sinai.
Speak to us today; let us hear Your voice.
O YHWH, You led Your people through the wilderness with a pillar of cloud by day.
Lead us today through our wilderness.
Your glory cloud filled the Tent of Meeting so thickly that Moses couldn’t enter in.
Then that same cloud filled the Temple with Your presence
so weighty that the priests could not stand to minister.
Do we dare to ask for the glory cloud of Your presence to rest on us, here and now?
O God who rides on the heavens in Your majesty through the skies, sending out Your mighty voice,
We set our hearts to see You in the storms,
to recognize You in the showers of rain,
to be thunderstruck by the roll of thunder,
to stand in awe at the flash of lightning,
to receive from Your treasuries of snow and hail,
to welcome the clouds as reminders of Your glory.
Rejoicing in Your grandeur,
Reveling in Your majesty,
Humbled by Your power,
We bow to Your splendor expressed in the storm.
1 Scripture for this stanza: Psalm 68:34; Psalm 148:8; Jeremiah 14:22
2 Scripture for this stanza: Jeremiah 14:2; Job 28:26; Matthew 5:45; Zechariah 10:1; Psalm 68:9; Psalm 72:6-7
3 Scripture for this stanza: Job 38:25; Psalm 29:3-4, 8; Psalm 77:18; Revelation 4:5; Psalm 50:3; Exodus 19:16; Job
37:4-5; Psalm 18:10-14, 17
4 Scripture for this stanza: Job 38:24; Exodus 19:16; Psalm 97:4; Job 28:26; Job 38:35; Psalm 18:14; 2 Samuel 22:15; Psalm 29:7, 9, 11; Psalm 77:18;
5 Scripture for this stanza: Job 37:6, 38:22; Isaiah 55:10; Psalm 63:1; Exodus 9:18, 25-26;
6 Scripture for this stanza: Psalm 68:4; Psalm 18:11; Exodus 19:9, 13:21, 40:34; 2 Chronicles 5:14
~ Kathryn Kircher, writer
~ Jonathan Kaufman, photographer
