“Great Is Thy Faithfulness” is one of those hymns that feels as if it has always been there, sung across generations in churches and homes, yet its history is quite recent. It was written in 1923 by Thomas Obadiah Chisholm, a man who lived a modest life as a teacher, a pastor for a short time, and later as an insurance agent. Unlike some hymn writers who were marked by dramatic conversions or fiery revivals, Chisholm’s life was ordinary and often fragile due to poor health. From that quiet existence, he produced over a thousand poems, but none reached the universal resonance of this hymn.
The words were later paired with a tune by William M. Runyan, who worked with the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. Runyan’s melody is stately yet simple, the kind of music that lifts the words without overshadowing them. It invites congregations to sing not with triumphal zeal but with steady confidence. Together, Chisholm’s text and Runyan’s music produced a hymn that has since found its way into hymnals around the world.
Its inspiration lies in a verse from the Book of Lamentations, chapter 3, verses 22 to 23: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” That verse, rising out of one of the darkest books of the Old Testament, became the seed of a song that millions now sing in both ordinary Sundays and extraordinary moments of life.
Lament in the Midst of Ruin
The irony of the hymn’s biblical source is striking. Lamentations is a book of grief and devastation. Traditionally attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, it mourns the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The city has been burned, the temple desecrated, and the people carried into exile. It is a text that gives voice to pain, confusion, and even anger at God.
And yet, in the very center of this lament, a confession of trust breaks forth. The poet does not deny the ruins that surround him. He does not dismiss the cries of his people. Still, he declares that God’s mercies are new every morning and that His faithfulness is great. This is not a triumphal statement, nor an attempt to erase suffering. It is hope born in the ashes, a defiant trust that even in devastation, God remains constant.
That paradox gives the hymn its depth. It takes a line forged in anguish and sets it to music that generations have sung in peace. The words do not lose their weight when lifted into a Sunday service. Instead, they remind us that the faithfulness we celebrate in joy is the same faithfulness that sustains in sorrow. The song carries within it the memory of a people broken yet upheld.
From Lament to Praise
This movement from lament to praise is not only in Lamentations. It runs throughout the Bible and stands at the heart of Christian faith. On the Cross, Jesus cried out the opening words of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” At first it sounds like despair, but Psalm 22 does not end in abandonment. It turns into a song of trust and hope, proclaiming that God has not hidden His face and that the nations will worship Him. In quoting it, Jesus places His suffering within this ancient rhythm of grief turning into confidence.
The apostle Paul spoke in similar paradoxes. He confessed that he carried a “thorn in the flesh,” a weakness that he begged God to remove. Yet he came to see that it was in weakness that Christ’s strength was most visible. “When I am weak, then I am strong,” he wrote. What sounds like a contradiction is actually the secret of faith. Human frailty becomes the very space where divine grace reveals itself.
“Great Is Thy Faithfulness” follows this pattern in its own way. It is not written from a battlefield or a prison cell but from the perspective of daily life. Still, it carries the same truth: that God’s reliability does not depend on circumstances. The hymn embodies the paradox that Christianity insists upon. In lament there is praise, in weakness there is strength, and in the most ordinary rhythms of life there is an extraordinary presence.
The Extraordinary Hidden in the Ordinary
What makes this hymn so unique among others is its refusal to magnify the dramatic. Many hymns speak of victory, triumph, or spiritual struggle. This one speaks of mornings, seasons, and daily provision. It is about creation’s steady rhythms and the everyday mercies of life. Its poetry is modest, yet that modesty is its strength.
The second stanza looks at creation itself: summer and winter, springtime and harvest, the sun, moon, and stars. These are not grand events but predictable cycles. They happen year after year without fail, often without our notice. Yet the hymn teaches us to see them as signs of divine constancy. The order of the cosmos becomes a reminder of God’s character.
The final stanza moves even closer to daily human experience. It speaks of forgiveness for yesterday, strength for today, and hope for tomorrow. These are not extraordinary requests. They are the simple needs of every person who wakes, works, struggles, and rests. By placing God’s faithfulness within this framework, the hymn reminds us that grace is not reserved for the crisis or the triumph. It is already woven into the smallest details of life. The extraordinary is hidden in the ordinary, and the ordinary is revealed as extraordinary.
Thy Faithfulness, Not Ours
Perhaps the most profound aspect of the hymn is its grammar. It does not speak of our faithfulness to God. It speaks entirely of His faithfulness to us. In human relationships, we expect reciprocity: if I am faithful, you will be faithful in return. But the hymn refuses to make human devotion the focus. Instead, it places all weight on God’s constancy.
This reveals what you called the perfect asymmetry of the relationship. Our faith is fragile, our actions inconsistent. Yet God’s faithfulness remains regardless of our state. Scripture says, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” The hymn reflects that truth. It is not a bargain, not a transaction, not a song about convincing God to love us. It is about being awed that His love precedes, sustains, and surpasses our own.
That does not mean our faith and action are meaningless. On the contrary, they are our response to what He has already given. Faith becomes gratitude, obedience becomes echo, service becomes reflection. The core is not our striving but His constancy. In this sense, the hymn humbles us. It takes away illusions of self-sufficiency and places us in awe of the One who carries us whether or not we notice.
Why This Hymn Endures
The endurance of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” across cultures and generations lies in this balance of simplicity and depth. It is a hymn that can be sung in a small rural church or in a grand cathedral, at a wedding or at a funeral. It speaks to the joyful because it acknowledges God’s goodness, and it speaks to the grieving because it insists that His mercies do not fail even in pain.
It does not belong to a particular movement or denomination. Evangelists like Billy Graham made it popular in the mid-twentieth century, but its reach has extended far beyond his crusades. Today it is sung across denominational lines, across languages, and across continents. Its universality comes from its focus on what is most basic: God’s character.
In moments of celebration, it is a hymn of thanksgiving. In moments of loss, it is a hymn of quiet strength. For everyday life, it is a hymn of reminder. It has become the kind of song that enters memory, that people hum without realizing, that returns in moments when words are hard to find. Its endurance is testimony to its truth: that God’s faithfulness is not bound to one culture or one moment, but is indeed great in every time and place.
Living in Awe of Faithfulness
To live in light of this hymn is to see each ordinary moment differently. Morning coffee, a walk to work, the laughter of a child, the cycle of seasons, even the struggles of weakness—all of these are charged with divine presence. Faithfulness is not only visible in rescue from tragedy or in sudden blessing. It is visible in the quiet persistence of mercy that sustains life itself.
That recognition changes the way one views the ordinary. It removes the illusion that we live by ourselves alone. Each breath is given, each strength renewed, each tomorrow held. This realization does not diminish human responsibility but situates it within a greater reality. We act, we trust, we love, but all of it rests on the foundation of God’s constancy.
To say “great is Thy faithfulness” is to confess awe. It is to stand in the paradox that even when life is fragile, even when faith falters, even when lament fills the heart, there remains a steadfast mercy that cannot fail. It is to join Jeremiah in the ruins, Jesus on the Cross, Paul in weakness, and countless saints in the ordinariness of their days, all singing the same truth.
And perhaps that is why this hymn is loved. It gives voice to what many feel but cannot articulate: that our lives, in all their simplicity, are accompanied. We do not sustain ourselves. We are sustained. The song reminds us not in thunder but in gentle assurance that the very ordinariness of life is extraordinary because of who holds it.
Image by Markus Distelrath
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