Great is His Faithfulness

Sometimes a bit of asceticism is good. Sometimes it is good to brush away the excesses of our days and spend some time gratefully living in the essentials. With the rocky economy bringing price increases and wage decreases, many of us may soon be living more simply as a matter of necessity. But as my years of living with the Lord continue to pile one on top of another, I have begun to see a pattern in the heart of God concerning sparseness and abundance: there is no leanness in my Father.

Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines leanness as follows:
1. lacking or deficient in flesh: containing little or no fat
2. lacking richness, sufficiency, or productiveness
3. deficient in an essential or important quality or ingredient

I am not saying that I have never seen difficult circumstances in my life. There have been times when the Reid household has lived very sparsely. My heart has anguished through searing, deep sorrow. I have mourned through seasons in my life when despair or fear or loneliness were familiar companions. I have lost loved ones. And I have lost dreams. But I have never found any leanness in my Father.

Even now, as I try to craft the words to describe the lavishly loving nature of my Heavenly Father, I can’t seem to find words that are deep enough . . . large enough . . . rich enough . . . true enough. However, there is one constant testimony that threads itself intricately through the tapestry of my life. It is the genesis of true purpose for me. It is the glory and the crown of my celebrations and my victories. It is the bedrock of my solace in difficulty and darkness. And it will be, I am quite sure, the benediction of my heart when I breathe my final breath.

God is faithful.

Thomas Chisholm wrote a song in 1923 that beautifully illuminates this truth. He claims that the hymn wasn’t born out of any dramatic life event. It was just the result of a daily relationship with the creator of the universe. The most remarkable attribute of Chisholm’s biography is its unremarkableness.

Thomas Obadiah Chisholm was born in a log cabin on July 29, 1866, in Franklin, Kentucky. He attended elementary school in a small country schoolhouse. At the age of 16, without receiving any high school or college training, he began to teach in that same country school. By 1887, Chisholm was working as the associate editor of his hometown newspaper.

Chisholm accepted Christ as his personal Savior when he was 27 years old during a revival meeting in Franklin. He served as the editor and business manager of a Christian publication until his ordination as a Methodist minister. Chisholm’s failing health, however, limited his pastoral work to only one year, and by 1909 he had become an insurance agent. After retiring in 1953, Chisholm spent his remaining years at the Methodist Home for the Aged, in Ocean Grove, New Jersey.

As I researched the life and accomplishments of Thomas Obadiah Chisholm, I ran across something he said that resonated in my soul. It was written in a letter dated 1941:

“My income has not been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me until now, although I must not fail to record the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God, for which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness.”

God is faithful. Simple, rich, profound. No leanness.

Reverend William M. Runyan, a musician associated with the Moody Bible Institute, wrote the music to Chisholm’s poem, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” About the poem, Runyan said, “This particular poem held such an appeal that I prayed most earnestly that my tune might carry its message in a worthy way, and the subsequent history of its use indicates that God answered prayer.”

Here are the words to the Thomas Obadiah Chisholm’s hymn.

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 will be.

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

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!

Psalms 46:10-11
Lesa K. Reid