No Substitutes for Real

The popular substitution of farm-churned butter with factory-made margarine (or “oleo,” as my mother used to call it) happened before I was born. Parkay, Chiffon, and Blue Bonnet trended in my parents’ generation and followed me to Chile… Where I discovered that even moderately respectable culinary establishments served no substitutes for real golden butter alongside their bread and pebre. So, though they didn’t get it at home, my kids grew up with healthier tastes than I did.

Isn’t it ironic? We think we’re modernizing. We believe we’ve improved. And we’ve moved on to better things. Yet the rustic simplicity of many developing countries offers a back-to-the-basics diet that relies on far less plastic and often far fewer substitutes for real nourishment.

For example, we actually eat lentils—fairly regularly. Neither soup nor beans come from a can—ever. Most people in our port city buy their fish at a wet and smelly market near the docks. They wouldn’t dream of a dinner without salad—likely, multiple salads—served with only a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice. And we ate avocado toast decades before it appeared on upscale restaurant menus.

“I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.” –C. S. Lewis

Anyway, enough about food, though it’s a favorite topic, as you know. But the assault on REAL continues to heat up in a myriad of arenas, and not just the sectors of nutrition or information technology. No wonder we’re confused about what’s real—in everything from love to life to literature.

Substitutes for Soul

About this time of year in Chile, the whole world gears up for Fiestas Patrias in mid-September. A friend of mine refers to these holidays as “our national drinking binge.” At least, political squabbles get subsumed in patriotic displays. But one wonders if people are celebrating real patriotism or more pisco-induced lethargy.

“Unless the reformer can invent something which substitutes attractive virtues for attractive vices, he will fail.” –Walter Lippmann

In our region of Coquimbo, the fiesta picnics—after the big barbecue, of course—consist of three to five days of sitting around, drinking mate and nibbling on grilled flatbread and reheated empanadas. For many, this time offers a chance for relaxation and family reunions. BUT.

There may be some community involved, but precious little real connection. We have fun, we may even talk. Yet deeper heart-to-heart relationships simply elude us. What a fellowship…

“The Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless, that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.” –Andrew Brown

And sometimes, I confess, I too would rather make comfort and comfort food my substitutes for real change and real rest. I’d often prefer to replace the genuine high of growth with, say, shopping or soccer or social life on and off my phone. And honestly, isn’t it easier to hustle and bustle than to dive deep and go authentic?

Love and Life

So what’s the missing link? The apostle Paul suggests in I Corinthians 13 that we often try a mountain of substitutes for real love. Here’s my personal paraphrase:

If Spanish flows from my tongue with a barely perceptible accent, and I can charm my listeners with fascinating Bible studies and am swamped with speaking invitations, yet I don’t have love, it’s like the painful, annoying screech in my ears when I don’t adjust my hearing aids...

If I study for years in seminary, read the Scriptures in multiple languages, handle the techniques of Bible interpretation ever so carefully, and answer all the polemics of church culture, yet I don’t have love, I might as well stare at my own belly button...

If I endure unappetizing food and unwashed bodies, slave over a hot stove and shower in cold water; even if I invest the best years of my life in the undeserving and spend Christmas Eve in a hovel, yet I don’t have love, I have no claim to true commitment.

“Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.” –Aesop

I’m deeply aware that all my talents, my allegedly “successful” career, don’t necessarily add up to real impact. My “remarkable” faithfulness over 40 years of service won’t, in and of itself, make a finger’s worth of lasting difference in anyone’s water glass of life. And those great (in my eyes) sacrifices can twist into merely substitutes for real obedience to Jesus’ command to “love one another.”

Droplet Gift #49:

I come to my Father “just as I am”—no faking it, no artificial spirituality. But then, I let Him who “makes all things new” (Rev. 21:5) take what I am by His grace (I Cor. 15:10) and turn it into true and real.

God has plans for you and me, and He offers no substitutes for real growth. For Christ to be formed in us (Gal. 4:19), it’s not enough to be informed. Definitely not deformed. Reformed, perhaps, and conformed (to Jesus), of course. But what we really want is to be transformed.

“To which kingdom have we really dedicated our children? Christ’s or ‘our best life now’?” –Gloria Furman, Missional Motherhood

However, we sort of hope that many things can serve as substitutes for real transformation. (Like, for instance, my studies, my service, my “sufferings.”) “We confuse…to our great detriment,” says Allen Arnold, “popularity and originality, fame and success, indoctrination and imagination, loud and true, formula and creation, new and better.” (Daily Thoughts)

How often we desire esteem and approval in place of true appreciation and love. We try on control in place of security in God. And we’d like to change anything and everyone except ourselves.

Oh God, don’t let me be the same person ten, twenty, years from now. Don’t let us remain mired in ruts and routines and rote repetition of what we think the world expects of us.

Substitutes for God

“Our great Christian heritage becomes more superficial by the decade, shallow and trivialized, noisy and glitzy with God-talk.” –Eugene Peterson, As Kingfishers Catch Fire

Pastor Eugene Peterson, translator of The Message Bible, further defines God-talk as “human speech in which God is depersonalized [as a general ‘spiritual’ force] into a language of information, manipulation, propaganda, and gossip.” Take a minute to chew on that huge thought-bite. We will find no substitute for a real God.

“There is no intellectual or emotional substitute for the authentic, the original, the unique masterpiece.” –Paul Mellon

Back when I sang in my high school’s regional choral group, during one marathon weekend we practiced and performed a classical religious arrangement. I’ve forgotten it all but for this one line: “Rend your heart and not your garment,” taken from Joel 2:13. In other words, change your heart, not your clothes, my friend.

To be real is the polar opposite of preoccupation with image and appearance. I don’t mean let-it-all-hang-out, this-is-the-real-me-so-get-over-it. (I’m kind of private, myself. Not the drama diva type.)

“…Sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears.” –Paul Simon

But I do mean we need to seek real food instead of garbage. We need to pursue real truth instead of fiction, or find real truth in fiction. Some of us have even substituted someone else for ourselves. Living under shadows and plastic masks. Hiding behind polite platitudes and surface conversations.

Yes, true transformation—with no substitutes for real renewal of our mind and heart—is incredibly hard. But while we surely recognize that Jesus makes the changes in us, it’s time we release the fake stuff, retire the show, and let Him do His work.

Lord, don’t take me home… until, by Your grace, I really am what You say I am.