Notes from St Mary’s
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
My name is Heesoo Warner, and I am the new curate who joined St Mary’s and St Thomas’ in July. Before training for ministry, I worked in education, and I have always enjoyed languages and the way words help us understand the world around us.
One hymn that has stayed with me over the years is Great Is Thy Faithfulness. It is a popular song, and it expresses something at the very heart of the Christian faith: God is faithful, even when we are not. The title contains a word we do not use very often today. Thy is an old-fashioned way of saying your. We hear it in traditional hymns such as “thy faithfulness”, “thy mercy” and “thy love”. We also hear a similar word, thine, in the traditional form of the Lord’s Prayer: “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory”.
While these words may sound old-fashioned, they remind us that Christians throughout the centuries have prayed, sung and trusted in the same God. Of course, God understands modern English just as well as old English! What matters is not the style of language we use, but the God to whom we pray.
The phrase “Great is thy faithfulness” echoes the words of the prophet Jeremiah:
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).
These are remarkable words because they were written during a difficult and painful time. Yet Jeremiah still found hope in God’s faithfulness. The same truth appears throughout the Bible. One of my favourite examples is the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. Faced with a huge crowd and very little food, the disciples saw only a problem. Five loaves and two fish were clearly not enough. Yet Jesus took what they had, gave thanks to God, and fed everyone.
The disciples focused on what was lacking. Jesus focused on what God could do.
I think many of us can relate to that. We worry that we do not have enough time, enough strength, enough confidence or enough money. Life often feels uncertain, and we cannot always see what lies ahead. Yet the Christian faith does not rest on our ability to cope with everything ourselves. It rests on the faithfulness of God.
That is why this hymn means so much to me. When I sing Great Is Thy Faithfulness, I am declaring a living truth. God is faithful. His mercies are new every morning. His love does not fail. And that is good news for all of us, whatever challenges, joys or questions we may be carrying today.