Songwriters often carry the seeds of songs for years before they germinate and begin to blossom into song. For years, I was struck by the metaphor embedded in creation of the crimson morning sky that reminds us daily of the mercies that are new for us through the cross. The sky with the vastness of its dimension seems the perfect canvas to display the expansiveness of God’s love. Paul writes of this in the third chapter of Ephesians. “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Worship songwriters are often intentional as to whether a song is sung from a first-person singular or plural vantage point. This song needed to be a “we” song. The culmination of the communal voice of the song is found in the final chorus where we hear a vocal ensemble made up of dear friends from the Christian community in our hometown of twenty-some years.
As the morning dawns
We behold your beauty
Stretched across the sky with each new day
Your great faithfulness
Written in the crimson
Mercy new and Grace that knows no end
Our lives are filled and overflow
With all the favor we’ve been shown
The splendor and the radiance of your love
We behold your majesty
The beauty of our Sovereign King
Your banner spreading over all the earth
As the evening falls
We recount your goodness
The blessings of your presence in our lives
With the stars above
That no one could number
We sing out the greatness of your name
How wide! How long
How high! How deep!
The fullness of your love
The fullness of your love
How wide! How long
How high! How deep!
The measure of the fullness of your love
words & music by Mark Beazley
© 2013 Mark Beazley