Uncomplicated

Life can get harrowing at times. At times it can be as complicated and difficult to unravel as a blind person trying to solve a Rubik’s cube underwater. The reason life can get overwhelmingly complicated more often than not is because no choice or decision is made in a vacuum. Every choice we make, every decision, every path, every crossroads, brings with it an almost infinite amount of ramifications that ripple outward throughout our lives.

From what career path to choose, to whom to marry, to what to name your firstborn, to whether or not you should buy that puppy your kids have been begging for even though you know they’ll never pick up after it or feed it the way they’ve been promising. Each choice bears consequence, and if we make the wrong choices often enough, we eventually find ourselves at the bottom of a pit, we dug with our own two hands.

How is it that some people get thousands of dollars in debt and unable to pay their bills? Simple answer, one bad choice at a time. How is it that some people get to the twilight of their existence without having had a meaningful relationship, been in love, gotten married, or held their newborn in their arms? Once again, one bad choice at a time. How is it that your stretchy pants don’t stretch anymore, and those few winter weight pounds turned into a few dozen winter weight pounds? You guessed it! One supersized combo of burgers and milkshakes won’t make you balloon to a record-breaking personal weight, but a few months or years of combo platters will.

Life is complicated. Anyone who tells you otherwise is living in blissful ignorance that is enviable only insofar as they can maintain the illusion they’ve created for themselves. Eventually, inevitably, the dam breaks, the illusion cracks, the ignorance is revealed for what it is, then nothing will ever be the same again from that moment forward.

I believe it’s because God knew life would be complicated that He made redemption and salvation so uncomplicated. We don’t have to stand on our heads, repeating a secret mantra while clapping our hands with one eye closed in order to be saved. Nor do we have to shave our heads, cut, self-immolate, or flog ourselves in the streets until we are a bloody pulp in order to attain salvation.  If we are willing to surrender, if we are willing to submit, if we are willing to fall at the foot of the cross in repentance, deny ourselves, pick up our crosses, and follow after Him, visionary or fool, it is a readily replicable process.

Salvation is purposefully uncomplicated because it is one less excuse man will have when he stands before God. There will not be a soul that stands before the great white throne of judgment who will accuse God of making it too complicated, challenging, difficult, or out of reach. No one will be able to surmise that they wanted to get saved, but the directions were just too hard to follow, so they gave up.

When men reject Christ, when men reject salvation, it’s not because the process is veiled in shadow, overly complicated, or impossible to decipher. Men reject Christ because they love their sin more than they love Him, they prefer their flesh over their spiritual man, and they make a choice to reject the gift that is salvation.

It was the selfsame Christ whom men reject that said if you love anything more than you love Him, whether your mother, wife, daughter, son, father, husband, mother, hobby, vice, position, possession, or sin, you are not worthy of Him. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.