Steadfast

"Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes! ...let me not wander from your commandments" (Psalm 119:5, 10).

Lord, You alone are steadfast,
and I am astoundingly not so--
erratic behavior,
scattered thoughts not taken captive,
fickle emotions,
warped desires and perceptions,
weak flesh.
"Prone to wander," as the old song goes;
utterly without hope
if the clinging, keeping, remaining steadfast
depends on me.

But You are the Giver of Life,
breathing into these dead bones
removing the blindness so I could see
and You who exchanged my heart of stone
for a heart of flesh
can, must, will
"take and seal it for Thy courts above."
You alone could reckon me righteous,
and You alone can keep me blameless.

So I cast myself on Your sovereign grace
and plead with the psalmist, the hymn writer,
"let me not wander."
Let me not wander.

Clothe me in the righteousness of my blameless Savior;
Keep me by the power of Your steadfast love.