Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground!
"Teach me" is an odd request from someone who's spent the rest of the psalm insisting his life is falling apart. He's not asking for rescue first, or comfort first — he's asking to be taught, as if the point isn't just to get out of the mess but to actually understand a different way to live inside it.
Then the request shifts to someone else's direction: let your good Spirit lead me on level ground. Level ground is a strange thing to ask for if you expect faith to mean dramatic mountaintop experiences. This isn't asking for a spectacular rescue — just solid footing, somewhere he isn't going to twist an ankle in the dark.
If you've never thought of God as someone worth asking to teach you, rather than someone to appease or avoid, this verse frames the relationship differently — as instruction, not performance.
If God has only ever felt like someone to appease, this verse's picture of being taught by him might be worth considering instead.
A short video on this is coming soon — for now, read on.