YEAR 3, WEEK 37, Day 19, Sunday, 13 September 2026

https://literalword.com/esv?q=Psalm+141;+Ezekiel+10

Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Sunday, 13 September 2026:

Psalm 141:1-2 — O LORD, I call upon you; hasten to me! Give ear to my voice when I call to you! Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!

David begins in urgency. Something is wrong, danger is near, and he wants God to act quickly. Yet what follows is striking because his deepest concern is not simply that God change his circumstances. David increasingly prays that God would preserve and change him within those circumstances.

He pictures his prayer rising before God like incense and his lifted hands like the evening sacrifice. Under the old covenant, incense regularly ascended before the Lord, and morning and evening sacrifices ordered Israel’s worship around continual dependence upon Him (Exodus 29:38-42). David understands that prayer is itself an act of worship and surrender. Revelation later uses the same imagery when the prayers of the saints appear before God as incense (Revelation 5:8; 8:3-4).

For Christians, however, our confidence that our prayers are accepted rests finally not in the intensity or eloquence of our praying but in Christ. Jesus is our great High Priest through whom we “draw near to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:14-16). We come to the Father through the Son, and the Spirit helps us in our weakness when we do not even know what to pray (Romans 8:26-27). Prayer is therefore one expression of our union with Christ: we live continually dependent upon Him, bringing our fears, desires, temptations, decisions, and circumstances into fellowship with Him rather than attempting to manage life independently.

Psalm 141:3-4 — Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips! Do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with men who work iniquity, and let me not eat of their delicacies!

David’s prayer now turns inward. Surrounded by evil people, his greatest concern is not merely what they might do to him but what their evil might produce in him. He asks God to guard his mouth, protect his heart, keep him from joining their actions, and prevent him from being seduced by “their delicacies.” The progression is important. Words reveal the heart, the heart directs behavior, and repeated participation eventually forms character.

This is a profoundly different response to living in a dark world. We naturally pray, “Lord, remove these people, solve this problem, change these circumstances.” David effectively prays, “Lord, whatever happens around me, do not allow it to draw me away from You.” Jesus prayed similarly for His disciples: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). God does not ordinarily form Christlike people by removing every difficult person and tempting circumstance. He keeps us in the world while increasingly making us unlike the world and like His Son.

David knows that self-control requires more than willpower. “Set a guard, O LORD.” James warns that the tongue is extraordinarily difficult to tame and capable of setting enormous destruction in motion (James 3:5-10). Jesus takes us still deeper: “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). Ultimately we do not merely need guarded lips; we need transformed hearts. Through the Gospel, God gives us His Spirit, and self-control becomes fruit produced in us as we walk with Him (Galatians 5:22-23).

“Their delicacies” may be even more dangerous than their hostility. Open persecution can drive us toward God, while attractive compromise can quietly draw us away from Him. The world rarely presents idolatry as idolatry. It offers acceptance, pleasure, advancement, money, influence, comfort, relationships, or opportunities and then quietly asks us to compromise Christ to enjoy them. Moses instead chose mistreatment with God’s people rather than “the fleeting pleasures of sin” because he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than Egypt’s treasures (Hebrews 11:24-26). What “delicacy” is most likely to weaken my allegiance to Christ? What am I unwilling to lose in order to obey Him?

  – Psalm 73:1-3 — Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

  – Proverbs 4:23-27 — Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward,

and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.

  – Psalm 37:8 — Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.

  – Romans 12:21 — Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

  – Jude 1:22-23 — And have mercy on those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

  – 1 Peter 2:11 — Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

  – Philippians 3:20 — But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ…

  – James 4:4 — You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

  – Romans 12:2 — Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Psalm 141:5 — Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness; let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it.

David would rather be wounded by a righteous friend than seduced by wicked companions. One offers painful truth that leads toward life; the other offers pleasurable acceptance that leads toward destruction. Proverbs expresses the same wisdom: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (Proverbs 27:6).

Our response to correction reveals much about our hearts. Pride instinctively defends itself, explains itself, minimizes the offense, questions the critic’s motives, or points toward someone else’s failures. Humility asks whether God may be speaking through the correction. Nathan’s confrontation of David over Bathsheba was painful, but it became an instrument of grace because David finally responded, “I have sinned against the LORD” (2 Samuel 12:13).

This becomes especially important in our pursuit of Christlikeness. God has predestined believers “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29), and sometimes the tools He uses are people willing to tell us what we would rather not hear. Union with Christ does not make correction unnecessary; it makes correction hopeful. Because our identity rests in Christ rather than our own performance, we do not have to defend the illusion that we are already who we should be. We can receive correction as one means through which our Father lovingly conforms us to His Son.

  – Proverbs 27:6 — Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

  – Proverbs 9:8 — Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.

  – Proverbs 12:1 — Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

  – Proverbs 15:5 — A fool despises his father’s instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is prudent.

  – Proverbs 15:31-32 — The ear that listens to life‑giving reproof will dwell among the wise. Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence.

  – Proverbs 17:10 — A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.

  – Proverbs 19:25 — Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence; reprove a man of understanding, and he will gain knowledge.

  – Proverbs 25:12 — Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear.

  – Ecclesiastes 7:5 — It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

  – Galatians 6:1 — Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

Psalm 141:7-10 — As when one plows and breaks up the earth, so shall our bones be scattered at the mouth of Sheol. But my eyes are toward you, O GOD, my Lord; in you I seek refuge; leave me not defenseless! Keep me from the trap that they have laid for me and from the snares of evildoers! Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I pass by safely.

David’s circumstances remain severe. His imagery brings him to the edge of death: “our bones” are scattered “at the mouth of Sheol.” Yet the pivotal word is “But.” His circumstances point toward despair, “But my eyes are toward you.” Faith does not deny what is happening; faith refuses to make what is happening the ultimate reality.

Peter discovered this physically when Jesus called him onto the stormy sea. While his attention remained fixed upon Christ, he walked toward Him; when his attention became dominated by the wind, fear overwhelmed him (Matthew 14:28-31). Hebrews therefore calls us to run the race “looking to Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2). The Christian life is continually shaped by where we look. Fixating on circumstances magnifies circumstances; fixing our eyes upon Christ increasingly places those circumstances beneath the sovereignty, wisdom, goodness, and power of God.

David asks God to keep him from the traps of evildoers and allow the wicked to become caught in their own schemes. He does not need to become like his enemies in order to survive his enemies. He can entrust justice to God. That anticipates Jesus perfectly. When Christ was reviled, “he did not revile in return”; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but entrusted Himself “to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23). Through union with Christ, that same pattern increasingly becomes ours. We do not overcome evil by becoming better at evil. We overcome evil with good, entrusting judgment to God while remaining faithful to Him (Romans 12:19-21).

David’s prayer therefore moves us toward an uncomfortable but necessary question: When life becomes difficult, am I primarily asking God to change what is around me, or am I asking Him to change what is within me? When mistreated, do I become more like Christ or more like the people who mistreat me? Do I guard my words when angry? Do I welcome correction? Am I willing to refuse attractive compromise? When circumstances seem hopeless, where are my eyes?

Ezekiel 10:1-2 — Then I looked, and behold, on the expanse that was over the heads of the cherubim there appeared above them something like a sapphire, in appearance like a throne. And he said to the man clothed in linen, “Go in among the whirling wheels underneath the cherubim. Fill your hands with burning coals from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city.”

Ezekiel 10 returns us to the extraordinary throne vision that opened the book. Above the cherubim is the likeness of a throne. The imagery matters because Jerusalem is about to fall, but heaven has not lost control. Babylon will eventually burn the city, but Ezekiel is shown burning coals coming from beneath God’s throne. Behind the visible events of history stands the sovereign King.

This does not make Babylon righteous or excuse human evil. God will simultaneously hold human beings accountable for their actions while affirming His sovereignty over history. Joseph could tell the brothers who sold him into slavery, “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). At the cross, sinful men crucified Jesus, yet they ultimately accomplished what God’s sovereign purpose had determined beforehand (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28). Human rebellion never pushes God from His throne.

That is important when circumstances appear chaotic. We usually experience history from ground level, where events can seem random, frightening, and beyond control from our very limited human perspective. Ezekiel is briefly allowed to see from another perspective: above everything is a throne. The Christian does not claim to understand everything God permits or purposes, but we know the One who reigns. And at the center of our confidence stands the cross, where the event that appeared to be history’s greatest defeat became God’s means of accomplishing history’s greatest victory.

Ezekiel 10:3-5 — Now the cherubim were standing on the south side of the house, when the man went in, and a cloud filled the inner court. And the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the LORD. And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard as far as the outer court, like the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.

The temple fills with the cloud and brightness of God’s glory. This imagery reaches deep into Israel’s history. The cloud had signified God’s presence at the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34-38), and when Solomon dedicated this temple, “the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD” so completely that the priests could not stand to minister (1 Kings 8:10-11). Now Ezekiel sees that same glory, but the scene is tragically reversed. The glory that once entered the temple is preparing to leave it.

That may be the deepest judgment in these chapters. Jerusalem will lose buildings, possessions, security, political independence, and lives, but the great catastrophe is the withdrawal of God’s manifest presence. The people had wanted God’s temple without God’s rule, religious security without covenant faithfulness, and God’s blessings without God Himself. They assumed that because the building remained, God must remain with it. Jeremiah confronted precisely that false confidence when the people repeated, “This is the temple of the LORD,” while continuing in rebellion (Jeremiah 7:4-11).

There is a warning here for every generation of God’s people. Churches can retain buildings, budgets, programs, music, preaching schedules, ministries, traditions, and crowds while gradually losing their deepest concern for the presence and glory of God. Individually, we can preserve the outward routines of Christianity while our hearts drift from Christ. The great question is never merely whether religious activity continues, but whether we are genuinely abiding in Him. Jesus said, “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

The Gospel shows us something even greater: God’s presence is no longer centered in a building, but in Jesus Christ Himself. God ultimately comes to dwell among His people not in a building but in a Person. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14). Jesus identifies His own body as the true temple that would be destroyed and raised again (John 2:19-21). Through His death and resurrection, those united with Him receive the Holy Spirit and together become God’s dwelling place (Ephesians 2:19-22). The glory departing Ezekiel’s temple therefore creates a longing ultimately answered in Emmanuel — God with us.

Ezekiel 10:6-8 — And when he commanded the man clothed in linen, “Take fire from between the whirling wheels, from between the cherubim,” he went in and stood beside a wheel. And a cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim to the fire that was between the cherubim, and took some of it and put it into the hands of the man clothed in linen, who took it and went out. The cherubim appeared to have the form of a human hand under their wings.

The fire that will consume Jerusalem comes from the presence of the holy God. The same divine holiness that reveals God’s beauty also exposes and judges sin. We cannot separate the God who saves from the God who judges, because both grace and judgment flow from the perfection of His character.

Fire carries both meanings throughout Scripture. In Isaiah’s vision, a burning coal from God’s presence touches his unclean lips, not to destroy him but to cleanse him (Isaiah 6:5-7). Here burning coals announce judgment upon a city that persistently refuses cleansing. At the cross these realities meet. God does not pretend sin does not matter; His holy judgment against sin falls upon Christ for everyone who trusts in Him. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin,” so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The Gospel therefore never gives us reason to take sin lightly. The cross simultaneously reveals how deeply God loves sinners and how seriously He regards sin. The Christian response is neither terror that makes us hide from God nor presumption that treats grace cheaply. Because Christ has borne our condemnation, we can come into the light, confess our sin, receive cleansing, and increasingly become holy because the Holy One now dwells within us (Romans 8:1; 1 John 1:7-9).

Ezekiel 10:9-12 — And I looked, and behold, there were four wheels beside the cherubim, one beside each cherub…. And their whole body, their rims, and their spokes, their wings, and the wheels were full of eyes all around….

The imagery echoes Ezekiel’s first vision. The wheels move wherever the cherubim move, and the many eyes communicate that nothing escapes God’s awareness. His throne is not stationary or geographically confined. Israel’s God is not a local deity imprisoned within Jerusalem’s temple. He reigns everywhere and sees everything.

That truth had two very different implications. For the unrepentant in Jerusalem, God’s omnipresence meant there was no secret room in which their idolatry could remain hidden. Ezekiel 8 had exposed people committing abominations while saying, “The LORD does not see us.” But for the faithful exiles in Babylon, God’s mobility meant something wonderfully different: if God was not confined to Jerusalem, then exile could not separate them from Him either. The same God whose glory could leave the temple had already appeared to Ezekiel beside the Chebar canal in Babylon.

The Gospel expands that assurance beyond geography altogether. Jesus promised His disciples, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Paul could therefore declare that neither death nor life, height nor depth, nor anything else in creation can separate believers from God’s love in Christ (Romans 8:38-39). Wherever Christ sends us, He is already Lord there.

Ezekiel 10:18-19 — Then the glory of the LORD went out from the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim. And the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as they went out….

The moment Ezekiel has been watching develop finally comes. “The glory of the LORD went out.” God had patiently endured generations of rebellion, repeatedly sent prophets, called His people to repentance, and exposed the hidden idolatry filling His temple. Now His glory departs from the sanctuary.

There is something almost painfully deliberate about the movement. God’s glory does not simply disappear. It moves from the inner sanctuary to the threshold and then toward the eastern gate. Ezekiel 11 will show it moving still farther away. The vision communicates the seriousness of what Israel has done. The God who graciously chose to dwell among them is withdrawing His manifest presence because they persistently preferred idols to Him. Yet Ezekiel will later see the glory return through the east gate to a restored temple (Ezekiel 43:1-5). Judgment is terrible, but abandonment will not have the final word in God’s redemptive purpose.

That movement ultimately points beyond a rebuilt temple to Christ. John announces that the Word “dwelt among us” — literally tabernacled among us — and “we have seen his glory” (John 1:14). Jesus is the presence of God among His people in a way no building could ever contain. Then, astonishingly, at the cross He experiences the abandonment our sin deserves: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). The Son bears judgment so that those united with Him will never be abandoned by God. Because He was forsaken for us, we can hear His promise, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

Ezekiel 10:20-22 — These were the living creatures that I saw underneath the God of Israel by the Chebar canal; and I knew that they were cherubim…. And each one of them went straight forward.

Ezekiel now recognizes with certainty that these are the same heavenly creatures he saw beside the Chebar. That connection is enormously important. The God whose glory is leaving Jerusalem is the God who had already revealed Himself to His prophet in Babylon. The temple may be destroyed, the nation conquered, and the people scattered, but God Himself is not defeated, displaced, or confined. His throne moves wherever He wills.

The chapter ends with the cherubim going “straight forward.” Their movement reflects complete responsiveness to God’s direction. They do not wander, hesitate, or turn aside. Your observation here fits naturally with a theme repeated throughout Scripture: “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:6). God told Joshua to obey without turning “to the right hand or to the left” (Joshua 1:7), and Hebrews calls believers to “make straight paths for your feet” (Hebrews 12:13).

Jesus embodies that wholehearted obedience perfectly. He could say, “I always do the things that are pleasing to him” (John 8:29), and He moved unwaveringly toward Jerusalem and the cross in obedience to His Father. United with Christ and led by His Spirit, we are being formed into that same wholehearted obedience — not divided between God’s direction and our competing desires, but increasingly able to say with Jesus, “not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).

Psalm 141 and Ezekiel 10 approach the same spiritual danger from different directions. David knows that he lives among people whose sin could gradually draw his own heart away from God, so he desperately prays, “Do not let my heart incline to any evil.” Ezekiel shows what happens when an entire covenant people stop praying and living that way. Israel repeatedly allowed its heart to incline toward idols until those idols entered the very temple where God’s glory dwelt. Psalm 141 shows us the daily battle against compromise; Ezekiel 10 shows us where persistent compromise eventually leads.

Together they remind us that spiritual apostasy rarely begins with someone consciously deciding to abandon God. It begins with smaller movements of the heart: an unguarded word, an attractive “delicacy,” a tolerated desire, resistance to correction, a compromise that seems insignificant, religious activity maintained while fellowship with God quietly weakens. Eventually the heart can become comfortable with things that once caused grief.

But both passages direct our eyes toward God. David says, “my eyes are toward you,” while Ezekiel repeatedly looks upward and sees the throne above the chaos. The answer to a world filled with snares is not withdrawal from the world but deeper fellowship with Christ within it. Jesus prayed that His Father would not take His disciples out of the world but would keep them from the evil one (John 17:15). That is still our calling. We are sent into the world without belonging to the world, and God has not sent us unprepared.

In Christ, He has already given us everything necessary to live faithfully now. Paul asks, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). Peter says that God’s “divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” through knowing Christ, along with His “precious and very great promises” (2 Peter 1:3-4). We have His presence, His Word, His Spirit, His promises, His people, and His continuing intercession for us. We have also been given His commission, accompanied by His authority and His promise: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…. And behold, I am with you always” (Matthew 28:18-20). We are not waiting for God to someday give us the resources necessary to follow Jesus. In Christ, He has already given us what we need to obey Him today.

That changes the way we think about sin. Many Christians speak as though certain sins still own them, as though past habits, desires, addictions, bitterness, lust, fear, anger, pride, or approval-seeking have the final word over who they are. The New Testament speaks differently. In Christ, we have already been freed from sin’s condemnation: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). We have also been freed from sin’s ruling power. Paul says, “sin will have no dominion over you” and calls believers to consider themselves “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11, 14). That does not mean Christians no longer struggle with sin. It means we no longer struggle as slaves who have no choice. We struggle as people who have been liberated, indwelt by the Spirit, and given a new Master who commands and empowers us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds – this is where we must participate.  Grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning. Our ability to work out our salvation is a gift from God, not earned; but we must employ the gift we have been given.

The battle is therefore real, but defeat is not our identity. Through the Spirit we can put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13). We can say no to temptation. We can confess quickly when we fall. We can forgive when the flesh wants revenge. We can guard our speech, receive correction, refuse the world’s “delicacies,” love difficult people, endure suffering, and obey Christ when obedience costs us something. None of this comes from confidence in ourselves. It comes from abiding in the One who said, “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), and trusting that the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead now dwells in us (Romans 8:11).

There is still another stage of freedom ahead. Christ has already freed us from the penalty of sin, and He is presently breaking the power of sin in our lives, but we still live in a world where sin is present within us and around us. One day even that will end. When Christ returns, He will finish what He began. We will see Him as He is and be made like Him (1 John 3:2). Creation itself will be freed from corruption, and God’s people will enter a world where righteousness dwells (Romans 8:18-23; 2 Peter 3:13). The presence of sin that now surrounds us, tempts us, grieves us, and still clings to us will finally be gone.

But we do not have to wait for that day to begin living with Jesus. Eternal life is not merely something we receive after death; Jesus defined it as knowing the Father and the Son now (John 17:3). We can walk with Him today. We can hear His Word, respond to His Spirit, enjoy His presence, obey His commands, participate in His mission, and increasingly reflect His character. The final victory is certain, but the life of that coming kingdom has already begun in everyone united with Christ.

  – 2 Corinthians 3:18 — And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

That is why Psalm 141 is such a fitting prayer for believers living in a compromised world: “Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth…. Do not let my heart incline to any evil.” We do not pray that as helpless slaves hoping God might somehow rescue us from sin’s control. We pray it as sons and daughters who have already been rescued, filled with His Spirit, and invited to walk closely with our Father. And Ezekiel 10 reminds us what is at stake. Nothing this world offers is worth trading for the presence of God.

So the Christian life today is not merely holding on until Jesus returns. It is walking with Him now while looking forward to His return. We live between a victory already won at the cross and a victory that will be fully revealed when Christ comes again. Until then, we have everything we need to live in the world without becoming like it, to resist sin without being ruled by it, to serve Christ without fear, and to move through each day with our eyes fixed on Him.

What do my words reveal about the present condition of my heart? What attractive compromise am I more vulnerable to than I want to admit? When someone corrects me, do I receive it as a possible instrument of God’s grace or immediately defend myself? Am I asking God mainly to remove difficult circumstances, or to use those circumstances to make me more like Christ? Have I become satisfied with Christian routines while neglecting actual fellowship with Jesus? If everything I associate with security were shaken, would the presence of Christ Himself still be enough? And today, where is He calling me to stop turning aside and walk straight forward with Him?

“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 13 September 2026: Before the end of today, identify one specific “delicacy”—a desire, habit, opportunity, relationship dynamic, source of approval, or comfort—that regularly pulls your heart toward compromise. Name it before God in prayer and take one concrete action today to remove or refuse its influence while choosing the obedience Christ is calling you toward.

Pray: “Father, Your presence is better than every gift and every comfort this world can offer. Guard my mouth, keep my heart from evil, and forgive me for the ways I allow lesser things to compete with Christ. Thank You that Jesus bore my judgment so that I could be reconciled to You and never forsaken. Keep my eyes fixed on Him. By Your Spirit, make me receptive to correction, resistant to compromise, faithful in difficult circumstances, and increasingly like Your Son. Teach me to treasure Your presence above everything else and to walk straight forward wherever You lead. Amen.”