Brenton Brown wrote “Lord Reign In Me” in 1998 while he was part of the Vineyard church movement in Oxford, England. He’d already seen in the years before then what probably gave him inspiration initially for the song’s words – from Apartheid in his native South Africa to his thought-provoking studies in law and politics at the university in Cape Town, where he says God first grabbed his attention. By the time he arrived in England as a Rhodes scholar and recorded songs while at the church in England, maybe he figured “Lord Reign in Me” was really a testimony about what God had already been telling him. The song’s words asking God to ‘reign …again’ suggest Brown was yearning for God’s renewed presence. One wonders if the words might have expressed Brown’s future, too – maybe a musical hint to Brown that God was trying to communicate to him?
Many songs have a single point of inspiration, one moment in which the Spirit draws the words of a tune out of the inner being. Perhaps that was what Brown was feeling when he wrote the song, although it’s not known really. Asking Him to reign ‘again’ might tell us that Brown was feeling that he wanted God to do something spectacular -‘…in your power', the song says – that he had felt before in his life, a notion that wouldn’t be foreign to followers of the Lord in the charismatic Vineyard movement. God can work in awesome and various ways, over and over again. As Brown’s life progressed, he contracted Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), forcing him to end his work in England and return to South Africa. There he married his wife Jude, a fellow sufferer of CFS. Later, he and Jude moved to Malibu, California, leaving their home church in England. ‘Reign again’ ?...could Brown have been thinking of the song’s reprise at these points, as life took some drastic turns ?
Brenton Brown’s words ask God, as the Almighty Creator, to be personal. It kinda seems like asking a king to come escort me around. Why would a king really want to bother with me? Giving control to anyone but myself is pretty daunting, even if He is the All-Powerful. In fact, the prospect of giving control of my life to an unbounded being makes it even scarier, because He might coax me to do something that challenges me. So, I can try to avoid Him…maybe he’ll overlook me. Maybe what Brown figured out was that the alternative to God is more frightening – even horrifying. The Lord’s reign is worth the risk when I consider the other choices.
The below links are to sites that gives some history of Brenton Brown’s life, including when he was at Vineyard UK church at the time that the song “Lord Reign In Me” was written in 1998.
http://www.brentonbrown.com/bio.html
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