“Direct my steps by Your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me” (Ps 119:133). No starker contrast could be drawn.
The Hebrew word translated “iniquity” means “to exert oneself in vain.” When one does this, says the psalmist, the emptiness of it all suffocates the soul. Imagine that! As the Lord said through Jeremiah, “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water” (2:13). That’s a doubly bad bargain: turning away from a bubbling spring of living water to a stagnant cistern, and a broken one at that, incapable of holding anything that can satisfy!
How different is David’s petition. He wants divine direction, not sin’s dominion. He wants the Lord, not self, in the driver’s seat. He says he wants the Word of God to guide him, knowing that wickedness always leads us on the worst possible path. So, Lord, please be patient with me, and direct me one step at a time.