Great Is His Faithfulness

Great Is His Faithfulness

One of the most encouraging gifts the Lord ever gave me was to meet the daughter of William M. Runyan, the composer of the music to the well-known hymn, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” The lyric was written by Thomas O. Chisolm and was taken from Lamentations 3:23.

It was the first year of my life as a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, and this lady was a volunteer from the local Episcopal church who was coming regularly to visit my mother's mother who had developed Alzheimer's. Her name was Esther Reinecke (nee Runyan). She had become friends of the family and after my conversion she had invited me to her house for lunch.

Music connected us. She was a musician and told me she had played music during the Chautauqua Movement. I don't know how long that movement continued because the Chautauqua Movement started in 1874. For our purposes, suffice it to say that the movement started out as an adult education program for Sunday school teachers and involved lectures and concerts. Esther played the violin and was a very sophisticated lady.

I had heard “Great is Thy Faithfulness” soon after I first became a believer in Jesus and thought it was one of the most beautiful songs I had ever heard, and it is still one of my top-10 favorite songs, secular or sacred. So it was very special indeed to be sitting in the living room of the lady who was the daughter of half of the songwriting team that created that wonderful piece.

According to George Beverly Shea in Crusader Hymns and Hymn Stories (1967) Runyan often appeared in person at the Moody Bible Institute during the late 30s and early 40s. This was also around the time Billy Graham was attending Wheaton Bible Institute near Chicago.

Shea said that there were no unusual circumstances that inspired this hymn, but that Chisolm, a Methodist insurance salesman, wrote them simply in response to God's faithfulness and sent them along with some other poems to Runyan, his collaborator.

Dr. Will Houghton, a late president of Moody Bible Institute, asked Shea to sing in the institute's radio program, “Hymns From The Chapel,” which consisted of 15 minutes of hymns at 8:15 in the morning. According to Runyan, it was the frequent use of this hymn for this program that helped it to become popular with the public.

I love that the writer of these lyrics was an insurance salesman. This gives me hope. As Shea said in his book, only a few out of perhaps hundreds of poems written regularly will be worthy of publishing. I have written more than 100 songs, but only a few of them (and, quite frankly, maybe only parts of them) have been worthy of publishing. But I'm not going to quit.

This also tells me that the writer of this hymn had a regular job, and I will add, so do most people. Most people also go through times of unemployment, low pay and discouragement in their work life. But this story tells me that God is faithful. This hymn tells me that God is faithful. My experience in life tells me that God is faithful. The Bible tells me that God is faithful.

First Corinthians 10:13 says that “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”

And remember the words of the prophet Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:23:

“Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed

Because His compassions fail not.

They are new every morning;

Great is your faithfulness.”

If you need encouragement why not listen to a recording of the hymn, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” or play it yourself or sing it, or meditate on these words:

“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 hope to see my friend Esther again one day and definitely will enjoy meeting her dad and his collaborator in heaven. Meanwhile, I will keep on writing songs and going to work at my regular job and keep thanking God for his faithfulness every day to all his children.

And I pray that you have been encouraged by what I have shared no matter what your circumstances because it does seem to be true that our faith is only truly tested when it is all we have.