Good morning and welcome to Starting Right . I am Danny Mac and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day . So grab your cup of coffee , sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right . Good morning everyone , and welcome to Music Monday .
Today we're going to look at the hymn Great Is Thy Faithfulness , written in 1923 by Thomas Chisholm . He based this hymn on Lamentations , chapter 3 , verses 22 and 23 , which says His compassions fail not , they are new every morning . Great is your faithfulness .
And the promise of God's faithfulness is really important to us because we can find ourselves in a place when we don't know who we can trust in this world . We hear politicians making declarations and promises and then finding out that the things that they have said are absolutely not true .
The other problem is that we are also seeing marriages fall apart at a faster and greater rate than ever before , so people are losing trust in those who are even the most close to them . And in the middle of it all , we are wondering who can we trust ? Who will give us the truth ? Who will stand by us when we need them ?
Well , the answer is , of course , that God will be . Let me tell you just a little bit more about Thomas Chisholm . Throughout his life , young Chisholm had many health issues .
Maintaining a job was very difficult , and so he went from employment to unemployment , and between those bouts of illness he did everything from selling insurance to journalism to some evangelistic work . But through all those ups and downs he truly discovered that there were new blessings from God every morning , just as is declared in Lamentations 3 .
He said that while he was serving the Lord in New Jersey he had written some poems and sent them to his friend William Runyon . Runyon loved Great Is Thy Faithfulness and decided to write the music for it . And this poem was so important to Runyon that he decided not to write the music hurriedly .
But he spent a tremendous amount of time praying and seeking God so that he would put just the right music to these powerful words .
Chisholm said that at first the reception to the song was somewhat lackluster , but then Dr Will Houghton of the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago discovered it and he would say in chapel well , I think we shall have to sing Great is Thy Faithfulness .
And it eventually became the unofficial theme song for the Institute , but still still , the song remained relatively unknown until it became popular around the world when it was sung by George Beverly Shea and the choirs of the Billy Graham Crusade .
As soon as the people discovered the power of the music and the impact of the words , they began to understand that this is a promise . This is a declaration that we need to hang on to . Great is thy faithfulness , o God , my Father . There are times when we are struggling with who to trust and who to hang on to .
There are times when we don't know where the answer is going to come from . We try our best , to do our best , and yet we sometimes find ourselves continuing to fail and we wonder how things will ever turn around . The most important thing that this song declares , and what we must never , ever forget , is that people may let you down , but God never will .
I want to read you some more verses that declare God's faithfulness to us .
Deuteronomy , chapter 7 , and verse 9 says to us Deuteronomy , chapter 7 and verse 9 says Know , therefore , that the Lord , your God , is God and he is the faithful God , keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments Over in Psalm 33 and verse 4 , for the word of the Lord is right and true .
He is faithful in all that he does . Psalm 86 and verse 15, . But you , o Lord , are a compassionate and gracious God , slow to anger , abounding in love and faithfulness . And from all of these scriptures , and from many , many more , we can know that the definition of God's faithfulness is that God will always do what he has promised to do .
And that's when we need to remember that , although we may fail and others may fail us , god is faithful . We can hang on to His promises and hang on to His Word and know that he is with us always .
I'm going to leave you with just a short section of Great is Thy Faithfulness this morning , and I'm going to include in your show notes today a link to a YouTube version of it , sung by Carrie Underwood and CeCce Winans . You will enjoy it . They do it beautifully . I hope you all have a great day .
My friends , we will talk again tomorrow and remember great is God's faithfulness to 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 .