I’m encouraged by the absolute sovereignty of God: He invites me to command Him to make me understand His way (Ps 119:27), to make me to go in the path of His commandments (35), to energize and enliven me (88), to order my steps in His Word, and to not let any iniquity have dominion over me! (133) He’s inviting me to acknowledge His absolute control over me and everything in my life, and to fully engage with Him as He causes goodness in me. (Ps 23:3)
If He commands me to pray like this, He’s evidently able to answer me … and intends to do so. The implication is I’m unable to choose good all on my own (Ro 3:10); I need Him (Jn 15:5), and He’s making it happen. (1Th 3:12)
He invites me to command Him to give me understanding (Ps 119:34), to incline my heart unto His testimonies and not to covetousness (Ps 119:36), to keep me back from presumptuous sins (Ps 19:13), to remove from me the way of lying and grant me His law graciously (Ps 119:29), to let my heart be sound in His statutes so that I won’t be ashamed (Ps 119:80), to turn away my eyes from beholding vanity, and to quicken me in His way. (Ps 119:37)
He also invites me to command Him to cause others who are likeminded to seek me out as companions (Ps 119:79), and to deliver me from oppression (Ps 119:134), especially from the proud. (Ps 119:122)
He can answer all these prayers because He works in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Php 2:13), and because He’s in absolute control of everything all the time. (Eph 1:11) All my steps are ordered by Him (Ps 37:23); it’s true for everyone. (Pr 16:9)
These prayers are all then, in themselves, precious promises that give me hope, and enable me to partake of the divine nature. (2Pe 1:4) His sovereignty isn’t an excuse for passivity, but a promise that my choices are grounded in His working in me, and an encouragement to pursue Him with an expectation that I will find yet more and more of Him (Mt 7:7-8), that He will reveal Himself to me (Php 3:10) and conform me to the image of His Son. (Ro 8:29)