Five Minute Friday - Instant

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One word. Five minutes to write about it. This is the idea behind Five Minute Friday and this is today's free-writing post.

instant gratification

instant results

instant potatoes

instant pot

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I got an instant pot for myself a couple years ago (actually I'm pretty sure it's not the Instant Pot brand, but anyway . . .) and the first time I used it, I complained to the family that it was NOT actually instant at all. It took a long time! I had to put all the ingredients in it and figure out all the settings, then once I turned it on I had to wait until it reached the required pressure, and believe me, it was NOT instant! It did cook the food very quickly, but again, once it was done, we couldn't eat it instantly, there was another wait for the pressure to release. Why is the instant pot not instant?

Instant oatmeal, instant mashed potatoes, instant noodles, instant pudding . . . all things we label as instant but apparently foods can be labeled as "instant" if they take just a few minutes to prepare, especially compared to how long it takes to do it from scratch. It's a convenience, a quick fix. I like having instant mashed potatoes on hand for when I don't have the time or energy to peel and cook and mash potatoes for dinner. It's quick and convenient.

Yeah, I often use instant mashed potatoes to quickly get a meal on the table, and sometimes actually prefer that, it's not always better to use the quick and convenient shortcut. With microwaves and fast food and promises of instant results, our expectations have been skewed and our impatience and laziness has grown. We want what we want, and we want it NOW, and are dismayed when it doesn't happen in our preferred timeframe.

Instant gratification takes too long. ~Carrie Fisher

How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young? ~Paul Sweeney

Even instant potatoes take time and effort. Very little on my part, perhaps, but they are a culmination of time and effort. A farmer in Idaho grew those potatoes, they were trucked to a food processing plant where workers and machines did all the preparation and measured those little flakes into a package, and then the packages were shipped to the store where I finally bought one and let it sit in my cupboard until the day I needed it. When the time had come that I needed potatoes in a hurry, they were ready "in an instant".

Anything that happens in an instant happens only after the time has fully come. 

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. ~Galatians 4:4-5

And that is the hope we have and are reminded of especially during these days of Advent. The time had fully come for the Messiah to come, and that's when he entered the world. The time had fully come for Jesus to reveal himself to his disciples, to die on the cross, to rise in victory, to return to the Father, and to send us the Holy Spirit. And now we wait for the time to fully come for his return.

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ~I Corinthians 15:51-52

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This post is linked at Five Minute Friday for the word prompt "Instant".

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