Happy first weekend of December!
If you’re new to the Five Minute Friday Writing Community, welcome! We gather around a single word prompt every Friday, feverishly writing for five minutes flat with whatever words come out . . . No overthinking, no editing — just write.
Sound terrifying? Try it! 🙂
Click here to learn more about the link-up and how it works.
Also: Please be sure to join the FMF email list so you don’t miss out on any fun announcements for writers!
This week’s FMF writing prompt is: INSTANT
Drive-through banking. One-hour photos. Online grocery shopping. Automatic car wash. Livestream media. The list goes on and on. We have conditioned ourselves to want things now. To expect things now. If a website doesn’t load in less than a few seconds, we give up and click away.
We have become obsessed with instant gratification.
We have trained ourselves to be impatient. We no longer know how to wait.
And yet, so much of life requires waiting. So much of life demands patience. And we’re woefully bad at it.
As we enter this season of Advent, this season of waiting for the coming of Christ, may we be intentional about unlearning some of our unhelpful habits. May we catch ourselves when we get impatient at that red light or that order in front of us in the Starbucks drive-through line that seems to be taking forever.
In the midst of countless things vying for our attention and teaching us to crave instant gratification, let’s act in a way that grates against society’s expectations of us.
Let’s learn to wait well for the only One worth waiting for.
STOP.Â
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Need some ideas to add to your Christmas list?
Here are some of my favorites . . .
What’s your favorite thing on this list? What else would you add?
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UPCOMING FMF SCHEDULE
Every year I take a short break from hosting the FMF link-up over the holidays.
I usually take a two-week break, but personal circumstances this year
have made it necessary for me to take a three-week hiatus.
Here is the upcoming schedule for the FMF link-up:
December 16: Last link-up of 2022
December 23: NO link-up
December 30: NO link-up
January 6: NO link-up
January 13: First link-up of 2023
Thanks for your understanding!
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Join the link-up with your own five-minute freewrite below, then visit your link-up neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment:Â
Instant coffee, instant rice,
instant oatmeal, instant beer
(which does not taste very nice!),
but the list above makes clear
that patience is a dying art;
we want it and we want it NOW,
and burgers are un-ID’d part
of a martyred half-grown cow.
It my thoughts could turn back time
to a gentler slower day,
I would not have to write this rhyme,
but instead could stop and play
with the dogs and cat and wife
in a lost lamented life.
Three minutes twenty. Instant sonnet?
Ah, well, proved my own point…too impatient to slowly proofread, and it should be “If my thoughts could turn back time…’
We live in a culture of instant gratification: overnight fame or success, immediate transformation of any kind, instant foods. fast foods or drive thru restaurants. etc. The insatiable desire to gratify our flesh or obtain instant positive results without much effort, sacrifice or self discipline rarely develops or matures us into the image of Christ which is the ultimate goal of Christians. The Bible likens spiritual maturity to planting a tree in fertile ground nearby a rich supply of water or body of water yielding its fruit in specific seasons (Psalm 1). Therefore, yielding spiritual fruit and developing Christlike character in our lives take time and patience to produce. We need to sacrifice our selfish desires and prioritize our time with the Lord, delighting in His presence and meditating on His Life giving Word. It is here in God’s presence, meditating and digesting His Living Word that we are transformed into the image of Jesus. It is in this Holy Place face to face with our Creator that we become all He has purposed us to be and where we prosper in all areas of our lives (Roman’s 12:1-2, Psalm1)