There were two men in a city, one was rich and the other was poor. The rich man had flocks of sheep and herds of cattle but the poor one had just one little lamb which he nourished and cherished.
The rich man had his eyes on the poor man’s cattle.
When some guests came from another city to visit the rich man, he took the poor man’s only lamb and slaughtered it for his guests.
What the rich man did to the poor man is called oppression. This is actually what Nathan the prophet told King David when he unjustly killed Uriah the Hittite and took his wife Bathsheba as wife when he had other wives and Uriah had just the one wife – Bathsheba. (2 Samuel 11, 12). King David oppressed Uriah.
The Cambridge dictionary defines oppression as a situation in which people are governed in an unfair and cruel way and prevented from having opportunities and freedom.
Oppression is a cruel or unjust exercise of power.
Oppression can start as early as in primary schools and can continue up till one is old.
Have you ever heard of little children being ostracized, picked upon or bullied by their peers because they look different, sound different, have a disability, are of a particular sex or have a different skin colour?
Oppression can manifest itself in our lives in many different ways such as fear, anxiety, not being yourself, decreased self confidence, withdrawal from family and friends and aloofness.
What are some of the things we can do to beat oppression?
1. Remind ourselves that God is with us.
No matter the size, strength, power or authority our oppressor has, being conscious of God’s presence in our lives, will make their threat seem less intimidating.
Knowing that we are not alone will help us see the situation from a different perspective.
2. Know your identity
Oppressors calculate their risks and look around for easy targets.
Drug Barons target black people in the projects to help them sell their drugs, because they know, these set of people lack the finances and resources needed to bring up cases against them.
Bullies too prey on the vulnerable.
The Bible too says, the devil goes around looking for those he can devour. That means he can’t devour everyone, but he scouts for those who don’t know who they are in Christ or their identity and then takes advantage of them.
In order to deliver ourselves from oppression, we must know our identity, and be conscious of the fact that God is with us.
3. Confront your fears –
Oppression breeds fear. According to 2 Timothy 1:7, Fear is a spirit that does not come from God.
The way to deal with fear is to rebuke it. It might seem weird but it works.
Rebuke the spirit of fear and refuse to tolerate in your life,
All through the Bible, you see God saying fear not. When the angel appeared to Mary, he said, “Fear not”. When Joshua didn’t feel qualified to walk in Moses’s shoes, God said fear not.
4. Confront your insecurities
Everyone has insecurities because we live in a fallen world with imperfect people. Even those that call out our imperfections are imperfect too. No one can make you feel insecure without your consent. They can point out your insecurity, but you can explain it away or make it seem insignificant.
Don’t over emphasize your insecurity. You might be bad at a particular task but excellent at another. Instead of homing in on your insecurities, play to your strengths.
When we let people emphasize our weaknesses and insecurities, we give them the permission to oppress us. Instead, we need to point out what we are doing to improve ourselves and how we are better now than we used to be.
5. Control our thoughts.
We can never come out of an oppressed situation, without managing our thoughts. The first place to win a battle, is actually in our minds.
I’m sure you’ve all heard that the mind is the battle field. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. If we see ourselves as victims, we will never rise up to be victors.
In the story of the 12 spies that were sent to spy the land of Canaan. The 10 with the evil report, took their time to study the people that lived around the Promised Land, they talked about the Amalekites, the Hittites, the Jebusites and even the mountains. They never once looked up, to think about God.
They came to the conclusion, that, they were not fit to take on those who lived in the land. They took on the persona of the oppressed.
6. Speak positive words to ourselves. We need to declare that we are victors and not victims. We are not what our oppressor says we are but what God says you are.
We should never reinforce our weaknesses or what you want people to forget about us. We should talk about our strengths and try to work on your weaknesses. We should never let our weaknesses define us. Set the tone if people want to emphasize our weaknesses. We might have had a bad past, but we shouldn’t let it define you, or be used by others to oppress us.
7. Lastly, we shouldn’t waste our pain. We have been oppressed, it’s unfair, and we didn’t deserve it. What should we do?
We can start by helping others, as we start empowering others, we’ll realize that we too are getting help and delivered from what people thought would break us.
We should never waste our pain instead we should empower others and say a big ‘N’, ‘O’ to oppression.