Welcome to our weekly Five Minute Friday blog link-up!
My name is Kate Motaung, and this is my fifth year serving as the host of this wonderful online community.
If you’re new to Five Minute Friday, here’s how it works:
Each week I share a one word writing prompt that goes live at 10pm EST on Thursday. Writers and bloggers are invited to free write for five minutes flat on the writing prompt of the week.
If you’d like to post what you write on your blog and link it up below or share your writing in the comments, you’re welcome to do so!
Link-up instructions can be found here.
Our only “rule” if you link up is that you visit the blog of the person who linked up before you to read their post and leave an encouraging comment.
Sound like fun? Let’s get started!
This week’s FMF writing prompt is: CONVENIENT
Ready? I’m setting my timer for five minutes, and . . . GO.
I have become a slave to convenience.
I first noticed it most acutely when I moved to South Africa in 2002. I had never realized just how convenient living in America had become.
In my hometown in Michigan, I can even stay in my vehicle and withdraw cash from the ATM thanks to drive through banking. I can pick up prescriptions from the pharmacy without getting out of my car.
As long as I have the money, I can order whatever material item I could possibly want or need and have it hand delivered to my doorstep within approximately 48 hours.
I have a washing machine and tumble dryer, a dishwasher, a microwave.
For several years while living in South Africa, I only had one of those things — and “our” washing machine was a shared machine in an outbuilding on our rental property.
But now we’re back in the U.S. and I’m ashamed to admit that I have come to worship convenience.
I have built for myself a kingdom of comfort, and there is very little “need” for God from my view on its cushy throne.
But is convenience really all that it’s made out to be?
Personally, I think convenience weakens my dependence on the Lord. It blurs my desperate need for him every minute of every day. It tricks me into thinking that life is about my comfort and ease above all else.
Convenience is nice, yes. But it comes at a cost.
STOP.
***
I have two fun announcements to share with you this week:
The first is that the Hope*Writers community is NOW OPEN to new members but only through midnight on Friday, January 25th, so act fast!
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HOPE*WRITERS
And secondly, I’ve been working on a little project behind the scenes, and I can finally spill the beans!
Starting February 4th, I’ll be kicking off a six-week series of video interviews with 10 different Christian writers:
Sign up now to get the interviews delivered to your inbox every Monday and Wednesday for six weeks, starting February 4th!
And now, go ahead and link up your own five minute free write on the prompt, CONVENIENT! Happy writing!
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If cancer were more lenient
that might not be too good,
for it might become convenient
to act not as I should.
I might live as I did, once
when the future stretched ahead
and fortune came as welcome bunce
beyond my daily bread.
But I cannot gnore it,
the pain and symptoms dire
of any enemy that won’t quit
pushing me into the fire.
But in the flames I’ve calm behaviour
because I’m standing with my Saviour.
(‘bunce’ is slang for unexpected good luck, or ‘gravy’)
Amen and amen! I’m a slave to it, too. Even though I whine about living in the sticks, I can get what I want in 48 hours from Amazon. I don’t even have to the go to bank, because I can deposit checks with my phone. Romans 15:1-2 came to mind tonight.
Kate, I’m afraid here in our western culture we are all convenience snobs. Moving from our home to our downtown flat I’ve gained conveniences and lost a few. I no longer have a washer and dryer at my fingertips. I gained 39 steps from the front of the house up to my loft office! But I still love it here.
This is very thought provoking! laurensparks.net
“I have built for myself a kingdom of comfort….” This is absolutely poetry.
Yes… It is EXPENSIVE, in every form of the word… BUT, some of the posts today really challenged my perspective and made me think that, in some cases, it just might be expensive NOT to use it too…
Nothing worth while is convenient, is it? We’re preparing for a game night at our house, picking up, making cookies, shoving the laundry atop the dryer behind closed doors. It reminds me of the myriad of things I force myself to do each week out of responsibility or obligation, but once completed, I’m so glad I did them. And, once completed, I can then enjoy the convenient. The quick cup of coffee, leftovers for lunch, a phone call with a friend. Having completed the inconvenient, the convenient now feels like a reward, no matter how simple. And then I am reminded that all of those inconvenient moments that “forced” themselves into my day were God’s plan for my day. He uses those moments – the ones I could live without – to make me more like Him. And I see those things were worth it. Worth the tears, the exertion, the pain, the mental agony. And now I can rest in Him.