FAITHFUL

Lamentations 2:23 inspired these hymn lyrics

If your life has brought times of sickness as well as health, then you have something in common with the man who wrote one of the world’s most beloved hymns. Thomas Obadiah Chisholm was born in 1866—just after the Civil War—in a humble log cabin in Kentucky. He went to a local country school where, at age 16, he became its teacher. Five years later he was hired to write for his hometown weekly newspaper. At age 27, he received Christ as his Savior during revival meetings in his hometown, led by Dr. H.C. Morrison, the founder and president of Asbury College. That’s when he wrote the hymn titled “O to be Like Thee,” whose chorus goes:
O to be like Thee! O to be like Thee!
Blessed Redeemer, pure as Thou art!
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness—
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.
Dr. Morrison invited Chisholm to move to Louisville and manage his own publication, The Pentecostal Herald. There, Chisholm was ordained to the Methodist ministry and assigned a church in Scottsville, Kentucky, but his poor health forced him to resign after a year. He moved to Winona Lake, Indiana, where his family had property and started work as an insurance agent, later moving to New Jersey. Besides his insurance work, Chisholm wrote more than 1,200 poems published in such places as the Sunday School Times, Moody Monthly, and Alliance Weekly. Many became hymn texts. Among those who encouraged him in his poetry: none other than Fanny Crosby. In a book about Christian music published in 1939, he was quoted as saying:

I have sought to be true to the Word, and to avoid flippant and catchy titles and treatment.  I have greatly desired that each hymn or poem might have some definite message to the hearts for whom it was written….

One day in 1915 a pastor-musician from New Jersey contacted Chisholm to write new words to a hymn melody. Thomas didn’t read music, so had his daughter hum the melody to him over and over before composing the lyrics. We know the song today as “Living for Jesus”:

Living for Jesus, a life that is true,
Striving to please Him in all that I do….

FROM AN OBSCURE POEM
In his late fifties, Chisholm sent several of his poems to a musician associated with Moody Bible Institute who was also an editor with Hope Publishing Company, and who published it in his private song pamphlets.  That editor remarked:

This particular poem held such an appeal that I prayed most earnestly that my tune might carry over its message in a worthy way, and the subsequent history of its use indicates that God answered prayer.

The song became a favorite of Dr. Will Houghton, a beloved president of Moody Bible Institute, and an unofficial theme song of the institute. Moody students took the song with them to churches where they served. But it remained largely unknown until George Beverly Shea introduced it to audiences at the 1954 Billy Graham crusades in London. Today, "Great is Thy Faithfulness" is one of the world's most beloved hymns. Who has not felt a lump in their throats in singing the line, "Morning my morning,new mercies I see"?
In a letter dated 1941—when he was 75—he wrote:
My income has not been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me until now.  Although I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God and that He has given me wonderful displays of His providing care, for which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness.

He retired in 1953—age 87—living in a Methodist retirement home in Ocean Park, New Jersey. People often saw this modest, shy and frail man walking the boardwalks and fellowshipping with friends at the town’s summer Bible conferences. He died in 1960—despite having frail health, living into his nineties.