Guest post by author Cassie Downs
“Cassie, have you tried these brownies? They are delicious.”
That was a lie straight out of my dear friend’s pie hole.
My friend Faith, seems all sweet on the outside, but inside she is full of jokes and trickery, such as getting me to eat, what I now call, “sawdust brownie.” I’m not lying when I say, it took me ten minutes to chew and swallow that brownie. It tasted and felt like someone had poured sawdust right into my mouth. Worst. Brownie. Ever.
If you’re wondering – Yes, I know what sawdust tastes like. I grew up in a family of saw millers and construction workers. Those brownies may have looked good, but I assure you they were not good.
Earlier this week, I started a new Bible plan on the Bible App with a group of ladies. It’s a great way to further and create community among my sisters in Christ, and it was incredible. Ladies were opening up and sharing about things to women they didn’t even know. It was absolutely beautiful. During the plan, there was one verse and one thought that stood out to me above everything: “There is no substitute for the presence of God.”
Here’s the one thing I crave from God, the one thing I seek above all else: I want the privilege of living with him every moment in his house, finding the sweet loveliness of his face, filled with awe, delighting in his glory and grace. I want to live my life so close to him that he takes pleasure in my every prayer. Psalm 27:4 TPT
This is where the sawdust brownies come into play. Them there brownies looked incredible. They were everything you dream a brownie should look like, but someone had the bright idea they also needed to be healthy. YUCK! Y’all, I don’t do healthy, I do tasty, and those brownies were lacking the latter. Whoever had made the brownies went to extremes to substitute all the goodness in the brownies with things like black beans and gluten-free sawdust – I mean, flour. In the process of substitution, they sucked all the goodness right out of them there brownies! But isn’t that what we do?
God has given us himself. He has given us everything we need to feel satisfied and fulfilled, yet we run to substitutions for our fulfillment. We feel alone in our relationship, so we stay up all night watching unrealistic Netflix romances or looking at pornography, trying to fill the void only building up more walls in our relationship. We struggle in our finances, so we go shopping to make us feel better for a moment, only digging ourselves deeper into debt. We feel empty or worthless, so we try to find our worth on social media, only to see everyone else’s perfect Instagram is better than ours, sending us into a more profound depression and self-hate.
Do you recognize the cycle? When we substitute God for idols, we lose. We lose our husbands, our friends, our homes, our worth, our faith. There is no substitute for Jesus in our life any more than there is a substitute for brownies. You can run as fast and as hard as you want from God’s presence, but you will be empty and bound.
So I ask you, what are some areas of your life that you need to replace the sawdust with sugar? What have you been using as a substitute for your relationship with Christ? I pray that God searches your heart today and reveals to you the places you keep hidden. Friend, I believe in you, and Jesus is waiting for you. Go take back your life.
Prayer: Search me, Lord. Illuminate the dark places of my heart. Reveal to me the substitutions I’ve been allowing. God, I don’t want to substitute you. Nothing compares to YOU and the goodness YOU bring to my life. Work in me and through me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Cassie Downs is a lover of Jesus and her family. She is the author of two books, Chasing Jesus and Unrivaled, both 60-day devotionals. Cassie is also the founder of Everyday Jesus Ministry, is a homeschool mom, and furniture flipper. She resides in Stockton, Mo with her high school sweetheart and husband, Dustin and their three teenagers.
Link to my social:
Instagram @downs.partyof5