Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Before We Sing
with Brett Taylor, Worship Director
Before we sing “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” together this Sunday, take a few minutes to listen and reflect on the story, truth, beauty, and goodness of what we are about to sing.
The Story
Thomas Chisholm wrote "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" in 1923, not after a dramatic miracle or mountaintop experience, but from an ordinary life marked by fragile health, financial difficulty, and the steady provision of God.
The Truth
The refrain comes from Lamentations 3:22–23. Remarkably, “great is your faithfulness” is spoken from the ruins of Jerusalem, surrounded by grief. Biblical faithfulness isn’t pretending everything is good; it’s remembering who God is when everything isn’t.
The Beauty
Listen to how the hymn turns creation into a choir. Summer and winter, sun, moon, and stars all “join with nature in manifold witness.” Before we ever lift our voices, creation is already singing the dependable rhythms of the world bearing witness to the dependable mercy of its Maker.
The Goodness
Singing trains our attention. “Morning by morning new mercies I see” teaches us to notice what we easily miss. Together, we remember what we so easily forget alone.
The Invitation
This Sunday, whatever has changed around you (or within you) lift your voice with the church and sing of and to the God who still is!