What Time Is It?
About this article
This reflection on chronological time and God's time provides much food for thought for busy people. The challenge to live in kairos is a timely one. Excellent for faculty formation, retreats, and student use.
What Time Is It?
I have a feeling that the disciples asked Jesus, "What time is it?" quite a bit in the Gospels. What time is it? How can we tell God's time here on earth? Those are simple questions with not-so-easy answers. Time. We keep it; manage it, save it, measure it, waste it, and lose it. I don't know about you, but I have lots of tools to help me manage time. I have a daily planner that I use faithfully. I wear a watch every day. I use a stopwatch when I exercise. I have a pocket watch on my golf bag to help me avoid slow play on the course. I use a metronome for choir rehearsals, so as to mark the timing and rhythm of music. I even have a timer on my desk--a minute timer it is called--so I can keep track of how long it takes me to accomplish tasks.
One day during a break, I was playing solitaire at my computer. Meredith, one of my beloved colleagues, walked by my office and said, "What is that?" I said, "Solitaire." She said, "No, that ticking sound." I told her it was my timer. I was giving myself a ten-minute break in the midst of my work. In her most loving response, she said to me: "Oh my gosh! You even schedule breaks and time them?" I said, "Of course."
Now, I know that if time management were an Olympic sport, I would be in medal competition. But all of these gadgets help us deal with and live in chronological time. Time marks when we work, play, pray, sleep, and rest. Chronological time is a helpful way to measure the order of our life.
Just so you know that I am not always obsessed with time, I do take moments in my life for retreat, for "down time" and time away from structured living. Recently I took two days off and went to a cabin to pray. Above the fireplace was a clock. I turned it around so that I could not see the numbers, and I also took off my watch. At that moment life seemed to slow down. Time seemed endless. At that moment I entered God's time and remained there for those two days of solitude and prayer.
Kairos is the Greek word meaning a decisive point in time, God's time. Chronos is the word used to measure a span of linear time that we know as chronological time.
Kairos. God's time. Another moment of God's time for me happened when I watched the most incredible sunset from the living room of my home. As I gazed upon this amazing act of beauty, I was consumed with gratitude for this timeless moment of prayer. A decisive point in time. Kairos. God's time.
In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 13, verses 24–32, Jesus reminds the disciples that God's time cannot be measured in the conventional ways that we know chronologically. God's time is endless and eternal. God's time occasionally turns our world upside down. In both the Gospel of Mark and the Book of Daniel, the writers often use wild and vivid imagery to describe the coming of God. The message of encouragement and hope to a suffering people is deeper here. Both the message in Mark and in Daniel is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable, to challenge the faithful in living lives of holiness and goodness--no matter what.
In our journey of faith, how do we ask God what time it is? How do we pay attention to the moments of God's time, kairos, breaking in to our calendars, daily planners, and schedules? Like Jesus says, we do not know the exact time; we do not know when, the hour nor the day. But there will come a day when Jesus tells us that it is time for us to fully enter God's eternal time. The bottom line is that we are not in charge. God is the keeper of his own time. Meanwhile, our challenge is that in the chronological time we have, the time we know, the time we live, we are called to live in right relationship with God. What is important is to be faithful in serving God, to be vigilant in our service, to pay attention to God's time breaking through into our life. We are challenged to set the watch of our life to God's time, to have our heart beat to the rhythm of God's love.
Together we are called to synchronize the watches of our faith to God's time. We are challenged to make sure our metronomes beat to the rhythm of God's music --God's justice and God's peace. So do not fear. Let us not be afraid that time is running out, but let us be watchful and ready as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our savior, Jesus Christ.
I have a feeling that the disciples asked Jesus, "What time is it?" quite a bit in the Gospels. What time is it? How can we tell God's time here on earth? Those are simple questions with not-so-easy answers. Time. We keep it; manage it, save it, measure it, waste it, and lose it. I don't know about you, but I have lots of tools to help me manage time. I have a daily planner that I use faithfully. I wear a watch every day. I use a stopwatch when I exercise. I have a pocket watch on my golf bag to help me avoid slow play on the course. I use a metronome for choir rehearsals, so as to mark the timing and rhythm of music. I even have a timer on my desk--a minute timer it is called--so I can keep track of how long it takes me to accomplish tasks.
One day during a break, I was playing solitaire at my computer. Meredith, one of my beloved colleagues, walked by my office and said, "What is that?" I said, "Solitaire." She said, "No, that ticking sound." I told her it was my timer. I was giving myself a ten-minute break in the midst of my work. In her most loving response, she said to me: "Oh my gosh! You even schedule breaks and time them?" I said, "Of course."
Now, I know that if time management were an Olympic sport, I would be in medal competition. But all of these gadgets help us deal with and live in chronological time. Time marks when we work, play, pray, sleep, and rest. Chronological time is a helpful way to measure the order of our life.
Just so you know that I am not always obsessed with time, I do take moments in my life for retreat, for "down time" and time away from structured living. Recently I took two days off and went to a cabin to pray. Above the fireplace was a clock. I turned it around so that I could not see the numbers, and I also took off my watch. At that moment life seemed to slow down. Time seemed endless. At that moment I entered God's time and remained there for those two days of solitude and prayer.
Kairos is the Greek word meaning a decisive point in time, God's time. Chronos is the word used to measure a span of linear time that we know as chronological time.
Kairos. God's time. Another moment of God's time for me happened when I watched the most incredible sunset from the living room of my home. As I gazed upon this amazing act of beauty, I was consumed with gratitude for this timeless moment of prayer. A decisive point in time. Kairos. God's time.
In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 13, verses 24–32, Jesus reminds the disciples that God's time cannot be measured in the conventional ways that we know chronologically. God's time is endless and eternal. God's time occasionally turns our world upside down. In both the Gospel of Mark and the Book of Daniel, the writers often use wild and vivid imagery to describe the coming of God. The message of encouragement and hope to a suffering people is deeper here. Both the message in Mark and in Daniel is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable, to challenge the faithful in living lives of holiness and goodness--no matter what.
In our journey of faith, how do we ask God what time it is? How do we pay attention to the moments of God's time, kairos, breaking in to our calendars, daily planners, and schedules? Like Jesus says, we do not know the exact time; we do not know when, the hour nor the day. But there will come a day when Jesus tells us that it is time for us to fully enter God's eternal time. The bottom line is that we are not in charge. God is the keeper of his own time. Meanwhile, our challenge is that in the chronological time we have, the time we know, the time we live, we are called to live in right relationship with God. What is important is to be faithful in serving God, to be vigilant in our service, to pay attention to God's time breaking through into our life. We are challenged to set the watch of our life to God's time, to have our heart beat to the rhythm of God's love.
Together we are called to synchronize the watches of our faith to God's time. We are challenged to make sure our metronomes beat to the rhythm of God's music --God's justice and God's peace. So do not fear. Let us not be afraid that time is running out, but let us be watchful and ready as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our savior, Jesus Christ.
Acknowledgments
Published November 30, 2000.
