Senehasa Gala Giya

Love flowed out
because you loved me
blood flowed out
because of my burden of sin

Lord, for you to think of me at all,
what is the worth that I possess?
I cannot begin to grasp it, my God,
that you would love me this much
that you would love me this much

You handed over to me all that you made,
yet who am I to have it placed under my rule?
Over the seven seas and every creature,
you gave me dominion, Lord,
you gave me that power, my God

Love flowed out
because you loved me
blood flowed out
because of my burden of sin

This is a hymn of humble wonder, a believer overwhelmed that the God who made everything would love someone as small as himself. It opens by pairing two flowings: “love flowed out because you loved me,” and “blood flowed out because of my burden of sin.” God’s love and Christ’s sacrifice are set side by side, the one the reason for the other.

The heart of the song is a question drawn straight from the Psalms, where the poet, gazing at the stars, asks what human beings are that God should be mindful of them. Here the singer asks it just as personally: “Lord, for you to think of me at all, what is the worth that I possess?” And he confesses his amazement, “I cannot begin to grasp it, that you would love me this much.” The love is simply too large for him to take in.

The final verse deepens that wonder by remembering the dignity God gave humankind at creation. “You handed over to me all that you made,” “dominion over the seven seas and every creature,” and again the humbled question, “who am I to have it placed under my rule?” What the listener is left with is the sweet smallness of true worship, a person standing before a God vast enough to make and rule the world, astonished not by his own worth but by the sheer, undeserved size of being loved by such a God.