A hymn and its story
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Words by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1923 · music by William M. Runyan
This hymn was not written out of a great crisis but out of a long, ordinary life of noticing that God's mercies really are new every single morning.
The story behind it
Not every great hymn is born of shipwreck. Thomas Chisholm, a schoolteacher and later insurance agent in Indiana, wrote this one from the opposite of drama: a plain, unremarkable life of frequent illness and modest means, lived in quiet trust. He once wrote that he had simply found God faithful, morning after morning, year after year, and wanted to say so.
In 1923 he sent several poems to a friend, the musician William Runyan, who set this one to music. Its words come almost straight from Lamentations 3, a book written amid the ruin of a city, where the poet, in the middle of his grief, suddenly remembers: God's mercies are new every morning. That is the hymn's secret. It is a discipline of noticing, and it can be learned in an ordinary life like yours.
The words
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!
The Scripture behind it
Why it still moves us
Most of life is not made of dramatic rescues but of ordinary mornings, and this hymn is for exactly those. It teaches the quiet art of looking back over a plain day and seeing that mercy was there all along, in bread provided, in strength for the task, in a God who does not change. You do not need a testimony full of miracles to sing it. You only need to have lived long enough to notice that he has been faithful.
Sing it, and mean it
A hymn is a prayer you can carry in your chest. The people who wrote these did not write from a stage; they wrote from shipwreck and sickbeds, from ordinary faithful mornings, and handed us words for the days we cannot find our own. You do not have to sing well. You only have to lift it, and mean it, to the One it is about.
Meet the One these hymns are aboutWorship in The Living BreadToday's breadRead Lamentations 3Jesus Christ is Lord.
Frequently asked questions
- Who wrote Great Is Thy Faithfulness?
- Thomas O. Chisholm wrote the words in 1923, and William M. Runyan set them to music. Chisholm was a schoolteacher and insurance agent whose long, ordinary life of trust, not a single dramatic event, inspired the hymn.
- What Scripture is Great Is Thy Faithfulness based on?
- Lamentations 3:22-23: 'It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed... They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.' The hymn turns that promise into praise.
- What does 'morning by morning new mercies I see' mean?
- It means God's compassion does not run out; each new day brings a fresh supply of his mercy and provision. The line trains us to look back on ordinary days and recognise how faithful God has been.