Have you ever felt as if you were trampled upon? I’m not talking about the literal stampede that plodded over me one night when there was an electrical fire at the basketball court! I can still feel those pairs of multiple feet pressing on to my already tiny midriff and wondering if my simple relaxation would outlast the hoard of footsteps that seemed totally unaware that the ground beneath them was not level but rather there was a teenaged girl’s body for their mat!
When the psalmist says 1 “people trample on me all day long” or 2 “my enemies trample on me all day long, for many might against me” I know exactly what he means.
It’s worse than the literal stamping that would squeeze the breath out of your lungs. I didn’t , I couldn’t keep count of my “tossings”, God probably did and put my tears in God’s bottle. I didn’t know there was such a thing! Maybe there was. How else would my tossing and tears turn to celebration and gladness when I proved the promise that God makes one’s enemies to be at peace with them.
Yes. I’ve been there, done that. Been harassed and persecuted for what seemed to be no reason and I was in the place to testify 5 “All day long they seek to injure my cause; all their thoughts are against me for evil”.
Unlike the psalmist I was probably, as usual, afraid to utter a prayer such as 7 “so repay them for their crime; in wrath cast down peoples, O God!” So what did I do? I asked God to help me understand what moved people to be so wicked. I could not pretend that they were being good to me; but I needed to understand the source of their animosity.
As I reflect on my past timidity, I must give God thanks for this trait that I could not then appreciate. I just had to live with it. But because I was ever so timid and hence unwilling to challenge the wrongdoer for his or her harassment of me, I was usually in space where I could feel the enemy’s internal discomfort and personal disappointment that moved them to heap their problems on me. It was a stressful life, if I must admit it now; but it helped. For we always came through. In nine out if ten cases, my oppressors turned to into friends.
Even persecution passes. It won’t last for ever. Your self appointed archenemy might well be become the one who praises you later. It happened to me.
Don’t know if it was an “if you can’t beat them join them” thing, or if it was just the grace of God- or both. But I can thank God for this.
Like the psalmist I can testify
13 “For you have delivered my soul from death, and my feet from falling, so that I may walk before God in the light of life”.