New Every Morning

New Every Morning

Thomas Chisholm was an ordinary man — a journalist, a businessman — who suffered poor health throughout his life. He was never famous, never led a large ministry, never accomplished anything that history would call great. He spent much of his life in financial difficulty. But from a meditation on Lamentations 3, he wrote a hymn in 1923 that has become one of the most beloved in the English language: 'Great Is Thy Faithfulness.' He described it simply: 'There is no great story behind it. My life has been one long experience of His mercies.' The mercies he experienced daily were small enough to be missed — and faithful enough to keep showing up every morning without fail. From that daily reality he wrote something that has comforted millions.

Lamentations 3 is the center of the most grief-soaked book in the Bible, and these three verses (22-23) are the turning point of the entire book. From the depths of loss, the author remembers something: the LORD's mercies. They are not exhausted. Not one has failed. They are new — not recycled, not the same mercy warmed over, but genuinely fresh — every morning. 'Great is Your faithfulness' is not a declaration made from comfort but from ash. It is faith that has been pushed to its limits and has found there, at the very bottom, that God's faithfulness was the floor. Whatever mercy you need this morning, it is new. Whatever yesterday used up, today has replenished. The faithfulness that held yesterday is holding today.