What if the answer to your prayer looked nothing like the blessing you asked God for?Simon of Cyrene travels to Jerusalem believing God is about to change his life. After years of hardship, he has prayed for a blessing, received his direction, and carefully planned the journey ahead.But Simon has made one mistake.He believes he already knows what God's answer should look like.Instead of the prosperity he expects, Simon finds himself pulled from a crowd, thrown to the ground, and forced beneath the weight of a condemned Man's cross.Within a few sacred steps, everything Simon believed about blessing, purpose, suffering, and surrender begins to change.The Bible gives us only a glimpse of Simon of Cyrene-the ordinary man compelled to help Jesus carry the cross toward Calvary. Simon of Cyrene: The Man Who Helped Jesus Carry the Cross imaginatively expands that brief encounter into a moving work of Christian historical fiction about one man's unexpected collision with the Messiah and the transformation that follows as he learns to walk in His footsteps.As Simon learns to Move when God says move, Mirror the footsteps of Christ, and Mentor those who follow behind, his story turns the question toward us: How often do we ask God to direct our steps, only to decide for ourselves where those steps should lead?For anyone who has prayed for direction, questioned God's timing, struggled to surrender a carefully constructed plan, or wondered if there is more beyond the life they imagined, Simon's story is an invitation to pause and look again.God's answer may look nothing like the one we planned.The road we never intended to walk may lead directly to our purpose.And the greatest blessing has never been a destination.It has always been Jesus.
