Great is Thy Faithfulness!
I hope this encourages you.
I was walking down a snowy Chicago road, dejected, reminiscing the past, talking with the Lord.
“Many times I have failed in many things. My failures in the past give me cause to worry in the present about the future, O Lord. That is what I think, that is what I feel. I have failed You, many a time. I have failed in relationships. I have failed at attaining goals and resolutions. I have failed people in promises, and have failed people in my behavior towards them. I have failed in keeping You as my only one passion and have allowed idols to creep in. I am fearful that I will never succeed in the future because of past failures. Will I ever succeed, in the particular things I have failed at so far, O Lord? Or must it remain this way?”
And the Lord said to me as I was walking along, it was Him replying to me without a blink, swiftly.
“Cheer up, son. You are forgetting something. You may have well failed in these individual things, these specific cases. But you have not failed overall. You have not failed in the big picture. Overarching these individual failures is My faithfulness. So do not dwell on the individual failures, true though they be. Dwell on my faithfulness that is above these individual failures. My faithfulness does not fail you. My faithfulness is present with you now, and overshadows past failures, and goes before you in to the future.”
This came like a ray of bright sunshine penetrating a grey and colorless day. I responded:
“O Lord, thank you. Father, thank you. Now, when in the present I think about past failures, I need not be fearful or anxious about my future fruitfulness, or success. I think about Your faithfulness in the past, even though I have failed in the past. And when in the present I draw from Your faithfulness in the past, I am not fearful or anxious about the future. Your faithfulness in the past gives me strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow! Great is Thy Faithfulness!
Didn’t Jeremiah too, on a cloudy day in life say . . .
“ . . . This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him.”
- Lamentations 3:21-24
. . . And Thomas O. Chisholm chimed in, in his great hymn, “Strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow. . . Great is Thy Faithfulness!”
So much for my failures, myriad though they be. They pale in comparison with the greatness of God’s faithfulness. And so, my mind, heart, soul, and body, remember His faithfulness. O Spirit of God, bring to mind Thy faithfulness, always. In Jesus’s Name, I ask this for myself, and all those who will read this. Amen.
© Kenny Damara, 2015
I was walking down a snowy Chicago road, dejected, reminiscing the past, talking with the Lord.
“Many times I have failed in many things. My failures in the past give me cause to worry in the present about the future, O Lord. That is what I think, that is what I feel. I have failed You, many a time. I have failed in relationships. I have failed at attaining goals and resolutions. I have failed people in promises, and have failed people in my behavior towards them. I have failed in keeping You as my only one passion and have allowed idols to creep in. I am fearful that I will never succeed in the future because of past failures. Will I ever succeed, in the particular things I have failed at so far, O Lord? Or must it remain this way?”
And the Lord said to me as I was walking along, it was Him replying to me without a blink, swiftly.
“Cheer up, son. You are forgetting something. You may have well failed in these individual things, these specific cases. But you have not failed overall. You have not failed in the big picture. Overarching these individual failures is My faithfulness. So do not dwell on the individual failures, true though they be. Dwell on my faithfulness that is above these individual failures. My faithfulness does not fail you. My faithfulness is present with you now, and overshadows past failures, and goes before you in to the future.”
This came like a ray of bright sunshine penetrating a grey and colorless day. I responded:
“O Lord, thank you. Father, thank you. Now, when in the present I think about past failures, I need not be fearful or anxious about my future fruitfulness, or success. I think about Your faithfulness in the past, even though I have failed in the past. And when in the present I draw from Your faithfulness in the past, I am not fearful or anxious about the future. Your faithfulness in the past gives me strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow! Great is Thy Faithfulness!
Didn’t Jeremiah too, on a cloudy day in life say . . .
“ . . . This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in him.”
- Lamentations 3:21-24
. . . And Thomas O. Chisholm chimed in, in his great hymn, “Strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow. . . Great is Thy Faithfulness!”
So much for my failures, myriad though they be. They pale in comparison with the greatness of God’s faithfulness. And so, my mind, heart, soul, and body, remember His faithfulness. O Spirit of God, bring to mind Thy faithfulness, always. In Jesus’s Name, I ask this for myself, and all those who will read this. Amen.
© Kenny Damara, 2015
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