August 25

"They laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross."—Luke 23:26.

GOD meets me at unexpected turnings of my path, as Jesus met Simon of Cyrene. When I am walking along the highway. When I am prosecuting my common everyday work. When I am sitting by myself alone, lo, He is there, proffering Himself to me, calling me to His side, changing the whole tenor of my history. I encounter a friend, and God begins to talk with me through my friend's lips. I open a book, and suddenly I find myself arraigned before His throne and looking up into His face. He is not far off from me.

God makes me a partaker in the afflictions of Christ, as Simon was compelled to carry the shameful cross. In some way or other suffering is the essential ingredient of every Christian life, and I must walk with my Saviour a mile or two along His Sorrowful Way. But bitter things are altogether sweet when He is present. He had His country-house in the Valley of Humiliation long ago, and, as I go down into it, I shall discover His footprints there, and the herb called Heart's Ease which He has planted for me.

God changes my repulsion into obedience, as He lifted Simon out of a constrained service into a ready porterage of the accursed Tree. In the lowly Valley, where there is at most "that rare and happy temperament—a pleasant seriousness," I learn to say, with Mercy the Pilgrim, "I am as well in this Valley as I have been in any part of my journey; the place methinks suits with my spirit." By and by, if not at once, I shall prefer the reproach of Christ before the treasures of the world.

O happy Simon of Cyrene!