Ordinary People

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 15th of April, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We go straight to the Gospel of Luke 2:25:

“And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.” 

You don’t hear much about Simeon, do you? No, he is one of the ordinary people. There are millions of ordinary people in the world. He was not a high priest, he was not one of the inner circle. No, but I will tell you one thing, he saw and recognised Jesus before any of the high priests or the Pharisees did. The Lord showed him and he said,

“Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace,…” 

You will see that in verse 29, when he recognised the baby Jesus, who had been brought to the temple. We need to understand something. It’s not about education, and there is nothing wrong with that, by the way, it’s a relationship with the Lord.

I had a man working on the farm. You have probably seen him in the movie, Faith like Potatoes. Yes, his name is Simeon. Simeon is illiterate, he can’t read, he can’t write, but I want to tell you, he became one of my best friends when I was a young farmer. Some of the holiest times we used to have together were in the workshop early in the morning before the staff arrived. 

When I used to travel a lot and Jill was on the farm with the children and they were young, I used to call him in, we used to sit together and I would say, “Please look after the family till I get back”, and he would say to me, “Don’t worry, I will look after them.” And he did - Jill said to me, often in the middle of the night, she would hear him walking around, just checking that everything was okay, and he was the one man that when he laid his hands on my head and prayed for me, he made me cry. I don’t know why. Yes, like Simeon of the Bible. Let us not judge a book by it’s cover. Let us be very slow to judge one another because I want to tell you, I have seen so many godly men in my life who don’t hold any public office, but they have seen Jesus. 

Have a wonderful day, 
God bless you and goodbye.