“Greatly have they oppressed me since my youth,
but they have not prevailed against me….
The Lord, the Righteous One, has cut the cords of the wicked.” Psalm 129:2,4
This psalm is not a blessing like yesterday’s psalm. In fact Psalm 129 begs people not to give any blessing to the oppressor. Why? The psalmist has experienced oppression from childhood, has finally been set free by God, and wants the perpetrators of oppression to wither away “like grass upon the housetops” so that their harm does not happen to others.
So I asked myself: who in my neighborhood would say they had been greatly oppressed since youth? It did not take long to come across this local news story of a year and a half ago: Watch here!
The list is long of oppressors that our neighborhood youth face: drugs, alcohol, bullying, hunger, abuse, inadequate funding for education in poorer neighborhoods, homelessness, all this besides the human trafficking noted in the news video. you may add to the list. So here is today’s question: who are the oppressed ones that we are running into in our neighborhoods, in our circles of acquaintances? Do they have advocates and, if so, who are they? Are we being called to join forces with the Lord and other advocates to cut some cords and help set the oppressed neighbors free?
Suggestions:
1. Take these verses with you and ponder its meaning for you throughout the day.
2. Or read the whole psalm to find out how these two verses fit into the whole.
3. Or comment with a photo of your own that is a window opening this psalm’s meaning for you.
The next post will be on Psalm 130.
Starting January 1, 2016, for 150 days I am posting a daily psalm verse with a photo that is a visual meditation on the text for me. Each day a verse from the next psalm is chosen until all 150 psalms have been featured. To participate you may subscribe to my blog at https://elainedent.net or “friend” me on Facebook and watch for the daily links to blog posts. Disclaimer: I am not a photographer and most of the photos are from a cell phone or small camera while hiking the Appalachian Trail or the C&O Canal/Great Allegheny Passage Trail.
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