The Weight You Didn’t Choose: Strength in Unseen Sacrifice
Real strength doesn’t always look heroic. It’s not always loud or praised or even noticed. Sometimes, it’s a quiet man, standing in the wrong place at the wrong time—who ends up doing the right thing.
You don’t get to choose the fires that forge you. Sometimes they find you. You’re walking your path, living your life—and then the burden lands squarely on your back.
The question is never why you were chosen. It’s what you’ll do when you are.
There was once a man like that.
He wasn’t a warrior. He wasn’t a preacher. He wasn’t even a volunteer. He was just a traveler—maybe a father, maybe a man bringing a lamb for sacrifice—caught in the wrong crowd on the wrong day. Soldiers grabbed him—no choice, no warning—and forced him to carry the bloody cross of a condemned man.
That man was Jesus.
And the man forced to carry His cross was Simon of Cyrene.
I imagine Simon felt a surge of fear—confusion, even anger. Maybe a Roman sword was pressed between his shoulder blades. He didn’t know Jesus. Probably assumed the man was guilty. He wasn’t a part of any of it. His only concern may have been getting through the day, protecting his sons, rejoining his wife, or offering his lamb at the temple.
But despite what he felt… he stood.
And he carried an insurmountable burden for the Son of God.
He didn’t know he was stepping into history. He didn’t know his act of obedience would echo for thousands of years. But in that moment—awkward, painful, and undesired—Simon revealed the kind of strength few ever show: the strength to carry someone else’s bloody cross.
That’s the kind of fire that forges men.
“A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.”
— Mark 15:21 (NIV)
Challenge:
What burden are you being asked to carry right now?
You didn’t choose it. You may not want it. But if you lift it with quiet strength, you’ll be walking in the footsteps of a man who helped carry the cross of Christ.