Life is a mysterious force, the difference between a person and a carcass; God breathes into our nostrils the breath of life … and we come to life, living souls. (Ge 2:7) He takes away our breath and we die, and our bodies return to dust (Ps 104:29), waiting to be quickened again by His Spirit at the Resurrection. (Ro 8:11) YHWH is Life, its ultimate source and substance. (Jn 1:4)
The word quicken means to give or restore life to. It appears 9 times in Psalm 119 as a recurring prayer … “quicken me:” (25, 37, 40, 88, 107, 149, 154, 156, 159) — bring me to life, more life, breathe into me again, more, restore and strengthen in me this force that moves me, energizes me, awakens me, and connects me with You and with others. (Jn 17:3) Each time this prayer is related in some way to His Word, His Law (Jn 6:63), the very agent in His quickening. (Ps 119: 50, 93).
Praying for God to give us spiritual life seems to be an acknowledgement that He must cause us to understand spiritual things (Ps 119:27), that we’re helpless to do anything good on our own (Ro 7:18), that we need His help continually not only to know what is right (Pr 2:6), and to do the right things in the right way with the right motive (Ps_119:35), but also to even want this. (Ps 119:36) God must give us both the motivation and the ability to follow Him. (Php 2:13)
There’s no room for Free Will here: our will is enslaved until and to the degree that God sets us free. This transformation is an ongoing process wherein we’re continually dependent on Him; it’s a basic principle woven throughout the Word in countless places, particularly in Psalm 119 (Ps 119:133), a Psalm evidently providing a foundation for spiritual life, containing the ABCs of faith. Until we get this, we aren’t yet grasping the very first principles (He 5:12), largely missing the nature of God and Man.
We’re all still-born spiritually, in death, apart from God, but believers have been quickened (Ep 2:5), raised from the dead in Christ’s resurrection, awakened and energized by the Spirit to walk with Him. It’s by grace — God giving us a new heart (Eze 36:26), writing His Law into our minds and hearts (He 8:10), transforming us by the renewing of our minds (Ro 12:2), working in us to will and to do of His good pleasure. (Php 2:13)