5 Most Influential Modern Worship Songs - Open the Eyes of My Heart

MercyMe, SONICFLOOd, Philips, Craig, and Dean, Randy Travis, Delirious, Michael W. Smith, John Tesh, Diamond Rio, VeggieTales.  That is just a small sampling of the large list of artist who have record the legendary worship song Open the Eyes of My Heart.
Paul Baloche is an acclaimed singer/songwriter/worship leader who has lead worship all over the world, in places such as Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and his home church in Lindale, Texas.  In a prayer service, Paul heard a pastor say a simple prayer, "Lord, we just ask you to open the eyes of our heart, to help us to see into your Word tonight."  Years later while leading worship the phrase "Open the eyes of my heart, Lord" sprang to his mind.  While singing and leading during the alter service he began to pray out loud, "Oh, Lord, right now, we ask you to just come and touch our hearts, Lord Jesus," as he continued to play his guitar and sing this phrase began to pop into his mind, "Open the eyes of my heart, Lord, open our eyes.  We want to see You."
Later that week Paul sat in his office playing back a rough recording of the song.  He later recalled, "I just kind of took that idea, which was mostly written as a prayer, and basically sanded a few of the edges so that it could just be a simple little prayer song."  A simple little prayer song with giant message that has sung in churches all across America, and the world.
Open the Eyes of My Heart has been covered by countless artist, played in thousands of churches and touched millions of lives.  It is listed as the number 5 song on CCLI Top 100 Worship Songs and was number 7 on the most recent Top 25 released February 2010.
When recounting the process of writing such a powerful song, Paul said the following, "Those are moments I try to capture. I’d much rather try to stumble upon a song idea in the midst of worship or in the midst of prayer than sitting in a room trying to come up with clever hooks, because it rings true. It’s more honest because it’s springing from the act of worship instead of saying, ‘ Okay, I’ve got to write some cool Christian worship chords.’ You end up with a Christian jingle. I’ve written those and I’m not proud of those. I find myself just wanting to be in a place of worship and letting songs come as a by-product."

References:
http://www.leadworship.com/resources/thoughts3.html
http://www.leadworship.com/blog/?p=181