Simeon: a Christian through many trials

I'm currently reading a book about a man called Charles Simeon. Simeon was vicar of a church in Cambridge (but we won't hold that against him) at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, for over 50 years. Here are a few things I've found out about him:

For over a decade at the beginning, the congregation, who didn't like him, stopped him from preaching at one of the services (in his own church!), locked the pews so there were no seats (in those days you could lock a pew to stop anyone sitting in it) and then threw away the chairs Simeon bought to put in the aisles for people to sit on, and when he tried to set up a new evening service, locked the doors so that other people couldn't come in. He was despised by all the tutors and lecturers at the university, who refused to talk to him, and when he preached students would gather outside to throw stones at the windows.

It goes to show how tough being a Christian who preaches the Bible or tells people about Jesus can be, but because Simeon knew his Bible he expected it, was prepared for it, and knew he could rely on God to get him through it. He told a friend; 'My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ's sake.'

Here's another thing he remembered later in his life, of a time when he 'was an object of much contempt and derision in the University...I prayed earnestly to God that he would comfort me from his Word. The first text (in the Bible) which caught my eye was this: "They found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; him they compelled to bear His cross" (Matthew 27:32). Simon is the same name as Simeon. What a word of instruction was there - to have the cross laid upon me, that I might bear it after Jesus - what a privilege! It was enough. Now I could leap and sing for joy as one whom was honouring with a participation of His sufferings.'

Too often as a Christian I'm surprised when things are tough, when people don't want to listen to me, when the world seems determined to ignore Christ. I need to remember Simeon's experience of a decade of being shunned and tormented by his own congregation and colleagues, and see that my 'difficult days' are nothing in comparison to that.

But most of all, I and we all desperately need to remember that even Simeon's trials are dwarfed by the man who didn't just carry a cross but was crucified on it, by the man who bore the sins of an unthankful world. That's the man we follow, and if being rejected, laughed at and looked down upon was good enough for him, we should in Simeon's words 'leap and sing for joy' when we are fortunate enough to suffer for Christ just a fraction of what he suffered for us.