I keep an old hymnal from my church right next to my bed, underneath my Bible and journal. As I was flipping through it the other day, I stopped for a moment on Great is Thy Faithfulness.
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.
God's faithfulness. I often think about my relationship with God in terms of my faith. I am called to be faithful to Him and have faith in Him. In times of frustration or confusion, have you ever wondered why God asks you to have faith in Him? My mother made this statement to me earlier this year: "I want to be found faithful, because God is faithful." These were such simple words, but they illuminated a truth that I had not thought much about before.
God is faithful to His people.
Lately, I have been able to resonate with Abraham and his story. An old man with a barren wife. It may not seem like we could have anything in common. God asks Abraham to leave his home and go to a new land with his family. "Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.'" Genesis 12:1 God's call to Abraham is a get up and go kind of call.
In May, I will get up and leave Bloomington. I don't know where I will be going yet. That will be determined by April. It is very exciting, and also scary. I might be called to somewhere where I will have to completely rebuild a life and a community. Somewhere completely new. But God is calling me to get up, and leave the places where I am comfortable.
Back to Abraham's story: around the time that he is called to leave his home, Abraham is waiting desperately for a son. He just wants a single offspring. This is what God tells him: "Look up to the sky and count the stars -- if indeed you can count them...so shall your offspring be." Genesis 15:5. God makes an incredible promise to be faithful to Abraham. Despite Abraham's age. Despite his wife Sarah's age. God will be faithful to Abraham and bless him in abundance.
God does bless Abraham with a son, Isaac. And Isaac is just the beginning of God's faithful promise to Abraham. God has a plan to prosper Abraham in His own time, and we see this plan unfold throughout God's story in the Bible.
God may be asking me to take a plunge into the unknown. But He is faithful. Just like with Abraham, His plan for me is for prosperity (Jeremiah 29:11).
Abraham's life and my life are separated by thousands of years. Yet I am written into the same story that Abraham is a part of - God's story. God promised to hand down a heritage of faith through Abraham. You and I are each one of the stars in the sky that God pointed out when He told Abraham of His faithful plan.
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I think the operative word in this hymn is not great or faithfulness, but rather is. Great is Thy faithfulness. It is a present and enduring thing. God wasn't faithful for a time. He was not faithful in a few things. He is always, and continues to be, faithful.
The hymn also reinforces this thought:
Thou [God] changest not, Thy compassions they fail not, as Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.
God's faithfulness never changes. It will endure forever. When you are struggling with faith, or being faithful, remember that your God is still faithful to you.
~SP
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