Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
The year was 1923, and Thomas Chisholm, a man whose life had been defined more by quiet endurance than spectacular success, sat in his study. He was not a world‑famous theologian or a high‑profile minister; in fact, he had spent most of his life battling fragile health, often struggling to make ends meet in a small town in New Jersey.
As Chisholm looked back over his life, he didn’t see a smooth, golden path. He saw years of uncertainty, vocational shifts, and persistent physical frailty. Yet as he opened his Bible, his gaze fell upon the ancient, hauntingly beautiful words of Lamentations 3:22–23: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
These weren’t just verses on a page to him; they were the summary of his existence. He realized that while his own strength had often failed him, the consistency of God never wavered. The seasons had changed, his health fluctuated, and his circumstances shifted like the wind, but the great faithfulness of the Creator had remained the bedrock of his reality.
With a heart full of gratitude, he picked up his pen. He didn’t set out to write a grand anthem for the ages; he simply wanted to articulate a personal testimony of divine reliability. He wrote of the morning‑by‑morning mercy he had experienced and the way God’s presence had been his strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.
Chisholm mailed the poem to his friend William Runyan, a musician and composer. When Runyan read the lyrics, he was struck by the absence of cliché. Most hymns of the era relied on flowery, high‑flown metaphors; Chisholm’s words were unvarnished, humble, and deeply grounded in Scripture. Runyan sat at his piano, seeking a melody that felt as steady and honest as the words themselves. The resulting tune was simple, sturdy, and elegant- a perfect vessel for a message that acknowledged human weakness while celebrating an unchanging, sovereign God.
The song began to travel, moving from small church gatherings to the hearts of millions. It became a permanent fixture in the tapestry of faith, not because it offered an easy life but because it offered a profound truth: in a world of constant shifting, the Creator of reality remains the one immovable constant.
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
I make no secret about my aversion to most modern worship songs. I’m not opposed to people writing hymns and worshipping through songs and poetry, but so many of these modern songs are generated through the music business by hired guns paid to churn out God‑related content for profit. I won’t rant about my experience in the music industry, particularly the Christian segment (it's so gross), but I will say there is something special about these old hymns that have stood the test of time. It’s interesting that this song stood out in its own day for being particularly scriptural, in contrast to the “contemporary” songs of the era.
And it stands out still today for the same reason. Artists and lyricists lock themselves away in cabins and studios trying to manufacture feelings. This brother just took a piece of Scripture that meant something to him. The inspired Word of God kept inspiring.
What I love most about this hymn is how ordinary it is. It doesn’t soar; it settles. It doesn’t try to whisk us into some spiritual mountaintop; it walks us back into the kitchen at 6:30 a.m. with coffee brewing and the same responsibilities waiting for us. Morning by morning—that’s not dramatic language. That’s the language of routine, of daily bread, of the God who meets us in the same place again and again.
Chisholm wasn’t a man of grand gestures or sweeping spiritual highs. His life was the long, slow kind- the kind most of us actually live. And maybe that’s why his words ring so true. Faith, for him, wasn’t a firework; it was a lamp that stayed lit through decades of weakness, limitation, and quiet perseverance. His testimony wasn’t “God changed everything in an instant,” but “God sustained me for another day.”
There’s something profoundly comforting about that. We live in a world that celebrates intensity—big feelings, big moments, big transformations. But this hymn reminds me that the Christian life is mostly made of mornings. Mostly made of small obediences. Mostly made of the steady mercy that greets us before we’re fully awake.
When I sing Great Is Thy Faithfulness, I’m not thinking about the mountaintops. I’m thinking about the long middle—the years that feel repetitive, the seasons that feel slow, the days when faith looks like showing up again. I’m thinking about the God who doesn’t tire of giving mercy in the same place, at the same time, to the same people who keep needing it.
Daily bread. Daily mercy. Daily faithfulness.
It’s not glamorous. But it's more than we deserve and it’s enough to build a life on.
