The Joy (and Confusion) of Substitutions
Living in rural Wales has its challenges, and one of them is grocery shopping. Thankfully, we live in an age where I can order my groceries online and have them delivered right to my door. What a blessing! No more trudging through the aisles with my wonky joints or trying to manage heavy bags with my fibro-weary muscles.
But there's one quirky aspect of online shopping that never fails to amuse (and sometimes befuddle) me—the substitutions. When an item is out of stock, the store attempts to provide a suitable replacement. Sometimes these swaps make perfect sense, like exchanging one brand of butter for another. However, there are times when I'm left scratching my head and wondering if perhaps the substitution algorithm has gone rogue.
Take, for instance, the time they replaced my requested strawberries with oranges. While both are fruits, they're hardly interchangeable in a recipe calling for fresh berries! Then there was the great lettuce-cabbage debacle of 2024. Try explaining to your husband why his sandwich now has to include cabbage instead of crisp lettuce. But my personal favorite was when they substituted black pudding for stuffing. For those unfamiliar with black pudding, let's just say it's a uniquely British creation that's definitely an acquired taste!
These amusing substitution mishaps got me thinking about how often we try to find substitutes for God in our lives. We attempt to fill our God-shaped void with all sorts of replacements: career success, relationships, material possessions, or even religious activities. But like trying to substitute oranges for strawberries, nothing else quite fits the bill.
The Psalmist understood this when he wrote, "For who in the heaven can be compared unto the LORD? who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the LORD?" (Psalm 89:6)
Only God can provide the deep peace we crave: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you" (John 14:27). Only He can offer the unconditional acceptance our hearts long for: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God" (John 1:12). And only He can give us the true purpose we seek: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works" (Ephesians 2:10).
Unlike my grocery substitutions, which I can usually make work (except for that black pudding incident!), there simply is no adequate substitute for a relationship with our Creator. He is the original, and everything else is just a poor imitation. So while I might accept cabbage instead of lettuce in a pinch, I've learned not to settle for substitutes in my spiritual life. After all, why settle for a replacement when we can have the real thing?