You might call me a news junkie. I’ve always been interested in national politics. That’s why I read a lot of articles about current events. I read some that I agree with, and some that I don’t. One thing I’ve learned, though, is that I cannot always tell what an article is about by just reading the headline. Actually, I often find headlines that were very misleading once I read the entire story that follows. By the way, I have found this problem to be on both sides of the political spectrum.

Let me give you just one example. This last year the New York Times had an article with this headline: “2 Palestinians Killed Following Stabbing Attack in Jerusalem.” When you read the whole article, you find that the two Palestinians who were killed were also the ones who committed the stabbing. I think you’ll agree that is not the impression the headline gave.

We often experience a lack of trust on a more personal level, too. For example, someone you trust can let you down, or even worse, someone close to you can turn on you and hurt you deeply. We all have been disappointed by others, but sadly the deepest wounds often come from those who are the closest to us.

King David knew what that was like. One of his closest friends abandoned David and even began plotting with David’s enemies to have him killed. Listen to the ache it caused in David’s heart, “For it is not an enemy who reproaches me, then I could bear it; nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me, then I could hide myself from him. But it is you, a man my equal, my companion and my familiar friend; we who had sweet fellowship together walked in the house of God in the throng” (Psalm 55:12-14).

If we can’t even trust our closest friends, then who can we trust? Thankfully, there is good news.

Did you know that our Creator is completely and perfectly trustworthy? Everything He promises to do, He does.

How can we know for sure that our God is dependable? We must realize that He is nothing like you and me. Our tendency is to imagine that God is, at least in some ways, much like us. Better than us, for sure, but similar to us. God tells us otherwise, “I am God, and there is no one like Me” (Isaiah 46:9). The Psalmist put it this way, “O Lord God of hosts, who is like You, O mighty Lord?” (Psalm 89:8). The point is, we can’t compare God to anyone else.

Since our emotions often change from happy to angry to sad, and back again, many people assume that God is something like that, too. One day we feel good, the next day we don’t. Sometimes we are cheerful and patient. Other times we are grumpy and impatient. God, on the other hand, is always the same. He never loses His temper. He never runs out of patience.  He is perfectly and eternally the same.

God’s faithfulness has no limits. “Your lovingkindness, O Lord, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies” (Psalm 36:5). “Your faithfulness continues throughout all generations” (Psalm 119:90).

Let’s not forget that, unlike us, everything God sets out to do, He does: “Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it” (Isaiah 46:11). “The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation” (Psalm 33:11).

This truth greatly impacted Thomas Chisholm (1866 –1960). He, like Abraham Lincoln, was born in a log cabin in Kentucky. When he was a young man, he surrendered his life to Jesus Christ.

His health was never very good, and he was only able to hold down a few jobs. Even though his life was often difficult, Thomas Chisholm wrote over 1,200 Christian poems. He drew great encouragement from one of his favorite Bible passages: Lamentations 3:21-25 “This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, therefore I have hope in Him’ The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.”

Those words inspired Thomas Chisholm to write the famous song “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” He wrote it a full thirty years after he started following Christ. In spite of all he had gone through, he could still write eloquently of God’s faithfulness. That song was relatively unknown until George Beverly Shea sang it in many of the Billy Graham Crusades.

Have you discovered God’s faithfulness? We all could use a reliable friend, and I’m so glad I found one in Jesus Christ. “You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:14-15).

I don’t know what I would do without Him! “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).