The Power of Your Love

In late August 1991 I sat down at a friends piano to "play and pray". The first words that came out of my lips were "Lord I come to you". By the end of the night my "playing and praying" had led me to write a song that has forever changed my life: "The Power of Your love".

However, a number of years ago, I realised that the song need a gentle but significant rewrite.
Why? Why tamper with a song that has so much history?
The simple answer was that I could no longer sing the song as a clear confession of my faith. I had changed and therefore the song had to change.
When I wrote this song I was being driven by a desperate need to proove myself. My life was weighed down by constant and unreasonable guilt, and my guilt was a captive to a shattered self esteem, and that self esteem was at the mercy of my obsessive striving and perfectionism. I had to "come to God" continually as I was stricken with a fear that he would pass me by. I was aware the "weaknesses that I saw in me" demanded continual penance, and no mattter how I cried "hold me close" I always felt as if I had jumped out of the arms of "Grace and mercy".

I did not understand grace. Whilst I had started my journey of faith by grace I was now seeking to perfect it in my own strength and my own works. I had misunderstood Jesus' dying prayers: "Father forgiven them for they don't understand what they are doing.... it is finished".
It wasn't until late 1996, when my life face tremendous challenges that I could find the time to realise that I could never "come to God". The Christmas story was surely God's "coming to us", and, in that coming, he had made the choice to "hold us close".
It was with this revelation that grace suddenly started to make sense, and the song needed a rewrite.
The miracle is not "our love for God", it is "His love for us". Our "worship" is not a celebration of "us coming to God", it is our overwhelming awestruck thankfullness of "His coming to us". These grace filled arms that hold a rebellious mankind safe and secure will never let us go. His hands, scarred with religious nailprints, hold us with a love that burns brighter than the universe of suns, a love that refuses to respond according to our deeds, a love that answers our darkness with overwhleming light filled love and life.
My faith has changed.
I no longer base my spirituality on "what I do for God". I am now intoxicated by the all that "God has done for me".

The Power of Your Love
Geoff Bullock

Lord I come to you,

Let my heart be changed, renewed,

Flowing from the grace that I’ve found in you

And Lord I’ve come to know,

The weaknesses I see in me,

Will be stripped away

By the power of your love.

You hold me close

You let your love surround me,

You bring me near

And draw me to your side.

And as I wait

I’m rising like the eagle

And I will soar with you

Your spirit leads me on

In the power of your love

You unveil my eyes,

You let me see you face to face

In the knowledge of your love

As you live, in me.

You renew my mind

as your will unfolds in my life

In living every day

In the power of your love

You hold me close

You let your love surround me,

You bring me near

And draw me to your side.

And as I wait

I’m rising like the eagle

And I will soar with you

Your spirit leads me on

In the power of your love

Lord you’ve come to all

With hope that shines to light the way

As mercy soothes our souls

Peace that flows so free

Love that sees the tears

Overcomes our darkest fears

Grace that lifts us up

In the power of your love

You hold me close,

You let your love surround me,

You bring me near

And draw me to your side.

And as I wait

I’m rising like the eagle

And I will soar with you

Your spirit leads me on

In the power of your love