Get Your Bearings
Hi, I’m Joni, and sing this familiar song with me, will you?
Great is thy faithfulness, Oh God my father,
There is no shadow of turning with thee.
Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not;
As thou has been thou forever wilt be.
Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see
All I have needed thy hands have provided
Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me.
You know, when I sing about God’s faithfulness, I like to think about His faithful markers in the world and in the heavens. And that’s why I think of the heavens, the constellations, when I recall God’s faithfulness because as sure as it is now December, you can look up into the night sky and see the constellations shifting, reminding us that we are coming up on the winter solstice. We’ve already said goodbye to the constellations of autumn. And now, we see Orion and Pleiades so clearly, these constellations and more are faithfully marking the change of seasons. Truly, the heavens declare God’s faithfulness; they declare His glory! Hardly a night goes by lately when I don’t look up into the blanket of stars and whisper, “Oh, Jesus, thank you for such a faithful witness as these stars, unchanging for the millennia.” And when I look up, amidst all the changing constellations, I always try to pick out the North Star. Polaris, they call it. If I wheel outside on a dark night in the backyard, there it is—I look up and I can see it up in the sky right there on the north side of our house. All the other stars, all the other constellations revolve around Polaris; that’s because the North Star never shifts, it never changes, it never moves.
And it’s a great picture of our unchanging God. With Him there is no shifting, there is no shadow, no change, no shadow of turning. And that’s a good thing because I’m the kind of person who does not always handle change well. It can be so unsettling, like, training a new helper to get me up in the morning, you know, someone moves away out of state, someone goes off to school, and I need a new helper and I have to train them. But when change frightens me, I turn to my Polaris verse, as it were: Malachi chapter 3, verse 6, “I am the Lord, and I do not change.” Don’t you love that? God’s care for me (and for you); it’s never going to change. Circumstances may shift, but you can always sing this beautiful old hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” You can sing it as a prayer, then grab your Bible and turn to that wonderful north star in Malachi Chapter 3, verse 6 where He proclaims: “I do not change.” He is always faithful. By the way, today you have to run to joniradio.org because today and over the weekend is your last chance to get your Christmas art foldout. It’s a beautiful piece that includes my favorite Christmas paintings, beautiful paintings, and great verses from God’s word. It’s a foldout that you can tuck into a Christmas present; just a wonderful little way to point people to the Christ of Christmas, the ever faithful one, the One who never changes.
“Great Is Thy Faithfulness” © 1923. Words by Thomas O. Chisolm. Music by William M. Runyan. Renewal 1951 by W. M. Runyan
© Joni and Friends
