We move to Psalm 129:

• “They’ve kicked me around ever since I was young” —this is how Israel tells it— “They’ve kicked me around ever since I was young, but they never could keep me down. Their plowmen plowed long furrows up and down my back; Then GOD ripped the harnesses of the evil plowmen to shreds.”
• Oh, let all those who hate Zion grovel in humiliation; Let them be like grass in shallow ground that withers before the harvest, Before the farmhands can gather it in, the harvesters get in the crop, Before the neighbors have a chance to call out, “Congratulations on your wonderful crop! We bless you in GOD’s name!” (1 – 8)

There will always be “us” and “them.” I’ve been “out of it” my whole life. Some of it from excessive legalism, but not all. Couldn’t go to movies with my friends when I was young. Couldn’t join in with the foul language at ROTC summer camp (some of the worst I’ve heard). Couldn’t do the crazy things my fellow Air Force officers did when they were drunk (I always left those parties early). “They’ve kicked me around…”

Eugene Peterson says that Psalm 129 is about Perseverance.

Yep. We persist in the face of various kinds of persecution.

Peterson says that when he was growing up he flitted from one interest to another. His mother would say:

He continues:

Paul persevered. See 2 Corinthians 11.23 – 29.

The writer of Hebrews called for perseverance:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12.1 – 3, ESV)