Mercy Reigns

Shane & Shane open “Mercy Reigns” with a surprising image taken from the Song of Songs. A woman “hides her face,” thinking an embrace from God is “too good” for her, and the answer is a lovely invitation, “Say my dove, your voice is sweet / Show me your form... your form is lovely.” The song treats the passage as a picture of the believer being sought by God, which makes the first verse unusually tender for a worship song.

The chorus puts the same claim in three verbs, “Your mercy reigns, Your mercy comes, Your mercy falls, it rises with the sun.” The second verse admits the story is hard to believe: “No ear has heard a melody as sweet as Yours for her / It seems too good, so undeserved,” and the writers identify with her, “my heart faints now, for we are her.” The response is a quiet resolve, “I will abide in Your love,” and a repeated line, “It's new every morning.”

Lamentations 3:22-23 is the source of that line, where God's mercies are new every morning and great is his faithfulness. The first verse paraphrases Song of Solomon 2:14, where the beloved is called out of hiding to be heard and seen.