We keep time many ways. A clock can tell us the minutes and hours of a day. A calendar offers us a glance at a year. A history book can provide an overview of long expanses of time past—highlights and momentous events that have shaped our present days.
Scripture not only speaks of this time—chronos (chronological)—but also of kairos (God’s time or appointed time). God, after all, is not in time, as time is part of the creation; and God is not creation, but Creator. Often, the time to which Scripture refers is kairos—the eternity of God and the ways God intervenes in human history at appropriate times.
The birth of Jesus, for example, was a kairos moment. Christ was born at the right time—God’s time. Abraham and Sarah lived kairos, as did Moses, Joseph and the prophets.
We are also a kairos people. Our lives not only are defined by chronos (how long we live in time) but also by kairos (how well we live with God and awaken to the God moments in our lives). The same can hold true for youth groups and youth leaders. It is most important for us to be aware of God’s presence, God’s movement, God’s leading toward other key moments.
Take a moment this week to reflect on God’s kairos. Where are you seeing God at work in your time? Where is God leading? What opportunities are availing themselves to you, just now, as God’s leading and God’s decisions?
