Perfect Love

Josh Garrels turns a prayer for divine love into a plea for inward demolition. The opening stanza asks that perfect love draw near so hatred can be put aside, and the singer confesses to being "wise and wicked" while asking to become foolish like a little child — a deliberate inversion of worldly status that echoes Jesus' teaching about entering the kingdom. The second movement shifts outward: love is "revealed through human ties," and the trembling thought that "man is not alone" becomes a reason to keep seeking God's presence even when mysteries confound and the soul's unsettling sound is the only signal of arrival. The final stanza is the most vivid — pride is pictured as walls under construction, and the singer calls for a wild stallion and a raised sword to cut the "chords of carnal lies." The imagery is martial and strange, but the request is humble: conquer more of me, so that I may ride with Thee. The repetition of each closing line — "Oh Lord please make me one," "In the souls unsettling sound," "That I may with Thee ride" — gives the song a liturgical, almost chant-like patience, as if the singer knows the answer will not come quickly.