Friday - Psalm 123 - Dealing with Contempt

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ho wants to be a doormat or a rug?  Don't all of us want some respect?  Whether we deserve it or not is not the point.  It is human to seek for validation, affirmation and attachment. We naturally want to matter and to belong to something that matters.  In fact, if you've ever been on the bottom... if you've ever been last in the pecking order, you know that even in that circumstance there is a fledgling struggle to feel important and superior by acting as if you are proud of what you are. Embracing our handicaps or idiosyncrasies and considering ourselves to be better than others specifically because of our shortcomings and inadequacies only proves that we crave worth.  We want to be exalted, not abased.  We want to be loved or admired or feared or at the very least: noticed by someone.  It's part of being human.  For better or for worse, this is reality. No man is an island.

Now, in Psalm 123 we find the psalmist looking to God for deliverance and for validation.  Like a willing slave looking to his master, we look to God for our purpose and meaning.  And, our sense of need for His attention and intervention in our affairs is heightened by the contempt which is poured on us from those around us who are "at ease" in this world; who are self-satisfied and proud.  There are enemies of the cross who laugh and mock at the "folly" of believers.  "Religion is a crutch for the weak,” they howl.  “The Bible is a bunch of fairy tales.  Spirituality is the invention of emotional men.  At best, Jesus was just a good man.  Heaven and hell are here on earth.  God is a myth,” etc., ad infinitum.  Don't you get weary of such base and baseless nonsense?  As if we invented ourselves (Psalm 100:3)?

The devil's crowd may treat us as an inferior breed until we have (like this psalmist) had our fill of it, but ultimately our God is going to rescue us, and then we will see who has the last laugh (Psalm 2:4).  Don't worry about the contempt of wicked men.  It will be their turn to face contempt eventually (unless we can see them regenerated first).  And, when contempt comes against evil men from God, there will be no escape for the lost in that day (Daniel 12:2).  Then, it will be worth it all for those of us who have borne reproach for Christ's sake (II Timothy 3:12).