Thursday, June 16, 2016

Great is thy faithfulness - New Verses

"Great is thy faithfulness" is a popular hymn for ordinations, however in the cathedral we need longer hymns than most churches due to the fact that our nave is so long and collections and processions take some time. This often limits our choice of hymns at services such as ordinations where we try to have particularly popular and well-known tunes.

 In order to solve this problem over a lack of verses I have written two more verses to Great is thy faithfulness, taking Lamentations 3 as the basis for these verses. This chapter of the bible was Thomas Chishom's original inspiration for the hymn.

Please feel free to use in a worship context as you wish, and if you need to make little tweaks for any reason, please also feel free to do so. I suggest that these verses go in the middle of the hymn if you use them.

Steadfast the love of the Lord never ceases
Quietly we wait for salvation to come.
Let us seek out and examine the Lord's ways
Woe and injustice he will overcome.

Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies we see....(etc)

Grieving I cried in the depth of the dungeon,
"Come to my aid, O Lord give me relief."
Thou hast redeemed me and saved me from sorrow,
from my assailants, their taunts and my grief.

Great is thy faithfulness.....(etc)