I pray all is well with you and your family as we dive deeper into the darker and colder months of the year here in Michigan. Those who know me best will agree that the further we go toward the seemingly sunless frigidity of winter, the more I’ll long for the clear blue skies and richly warm sunshine of summer. For me, summertime is not only a period for physical and mental rejuvenation, but it carries in its streaming rays a much simpler mode of life. Winter brings snow, extra layers of clothing, scraping windshields, shoveling and salting walkways—all of this just to go from one place to the next. For many, it means doing all of it in the dark, only to return home later that day in the same pitched shadows, with barely an opportunity in between to enjoy unobstructed sunshine.

Summer, on the other hand, is simpler. It means waking with the sun already nudging you with its warmth. It means walking directly to the car unhindered, driving to work in the sunlight, and returning home again with the same gleams of wellbeing caressing your face. It means after-dinner hours enjoying that same heavenly light and the beautiful landscape that light so effortlessly highlights for our viewing pleasure.

Winter has a sense of complication. Summer feels much easier.

Speaking of complicated versus easy, while at the same time still thinking about the events of our recent “The Body of Christ and the Public Square” conference, I’ve noticed from conversations with folks in attendance that no small number come to the event expecting the extraordinary woes of our day to be met with extraordinary solutions. And yet, when the emotion that’s almost always mixed in gets stripped away, it’s discovered that the problems themselves are often less complicated than we expected. In truth, the answers to the concerns are usually just as simple, requiring only the stamina of living every day according to one’s values, as opposed to formulating complex strategies that will, at some point, require brute force muscle.

In other words, our hearts and minds expect the astonishing when what we need is usually quite ordinary.

I more than hinted to this in my speech. I noticed Abby Johnson, Candace Owens, and Charlie Kirk all said more or less the same thing in theirs. And why? Because it’s true. While we like to complicate things, more often than not, the solutions we need are usually very simple.

That logic applies to salvation, too.

For starters, it’s not beyond us to complicate what God has done to win our forgiveness. Perhaps we find ourselves making deals with Him, promising to do this or that, all the while hoping that He’s figuring into His calculations our good deeds against our bad. Or maybe we try to avoid Him altogether, figuring we’ll never measure up to His expectations, ultimately finding ourselves in despair. But God’s simple reply to all of this is that His Son’s sacrifice on the cross was enough. No deals are necessary. No calculations are required. No need to avoid His presence. All is well between God and Man through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Believe this and all will be well with your eternity.

On the other hand, perhaps we look to our God expecting fantastical displays and magical deliverances. We ask to hear His voice. We pray for a sign. We expect a miracle. But in the end, His reaching to us occurs by way of very ordinary things. He gives us a book filled with the promises of His love (Hebrews 4:12; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; Psalm 119:105). He sends us the Good News of our rescue through the preaching of a less-than-spectacular servant—a pastor (Romans 10:14-15). He claims us as His own by combining His Word with water to wash us clean in the blood of the Savior (Matthew 28:19; Romans 6:3-10; Galatians 3:27), and He attaches a promise to what He does there, saying, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). He makes His presence among us, bringing even more of His wonderful love by means of commonplace food items—bread and wine (Matthew 26:17–29; Mark 14:12–25; Luke 22:7–38; 1 Corinthians 11:23-29).

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea, which in the end, is that your God doesn’t want you wrestling with the complication of uncertainty. He wants to assure you of His love through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He wants you to be uncomplicated by the fetters of sinful human tendency, which as I said, bears the potential for making something very easy into something very hard.

My advice: Look to the cross. Be reminded of the holy One who hung there. Rest assured that what He did on that cross was the most extraordinary act of God wrapped up in the unsettling usualness of a common criminal’s death. But there amid the agony and bloody sweat, among the excruciating sighs, and finally, by His dying breath, your complicated account was settled with God. Through faith in His sacrifice on your behalf, your eternal balance reads, “Amount due: $0.00.”

Believe this. It really is that simple.