Thursday, April 17, 2008

Great is Thy Faithfulness



This morning our family read through the familiar refrain in Lamentations where Jeremiah remembers the faithfulness of his God (3:20-23). After a rough night of sleep, this passage was a welcome refreshment to my tired soul:

Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

As the sun made its appearance over the morning horizon on my way to work, I was indeed experiencing the new, fresh mercies of the Lord on a cool, crisp, spring morning in April.

Thomas Chisolm wrote the following hymn in 1923 as a result of his personal study of the Word of God and by experiencing the mercies of God first hand. How many times have we sung this great hymn of the church without feeling the height and depth and breadth of the character of God it describes?

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee.
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy Faithfulness, Lord unto me.


Looking forward to tomorrow’s new mercies,
Mark

No comments: