LEADERS ARE PUNCTUALEffective leaders know they cannot “beat the clock”...turn back the
time...reverse the flow of the sand in the hour glass...or turn back the
shadow on the sun dial! Time relentlessly marches on! Wise leaders can and
do learn to become good managers of the time that they have. It is chronos
time that is the focus of attention in Time Management Seminars that are
so popular in the business world today.
As important as chronos time is, there is another kind of time that is even
more important. The Bible calls this time kairos. It is a “divine moment.”
Wise and effective leaders – and especially spiritual leaders – understand
the difference between these two kinds of time. Let’s take a moment to
examine the difference between them.
Kairos is a “God moment” that sovereignly intervenes in time. This is a
chronos moment when kairos invades human history with divine intent.
Salvation was one of those kairos events planned by God in eternity
past “...before the beginning of time” (II Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2). As a
result, “When the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of
a woman...” (Gal. 4:4). It was the kairos moment of Christ’s birth that
divided chronos into B.C. and A.D. Since His Incarnation, human history
in most of the Western world has been reckoned in terms of Before Christ,
and Anno Domini, or “in the year of the Lord.”
Kairos time is a sovereignly significant moment when eternity invades and
interrupts time. It is a kairos moment when God intervenes in human events
in a special way – which we later refer to as the miraculous. Chronos becomes
sanctified and significant when touched and transformed by kairos. A kairos
moment has to do with God fulfilling...completing...consummating in
time, a preordained plan and purpose of His own. Watches and calendars
are not very effective in predicting or telling this kind of time. Our
foreknowledge of kairos comes only through divine revelation. Kairos is
the God-kind-of-time known only to Him. It is only the Spirit and the
Wo rd that can sensitize and attune our hearts and minds to this kind of
kairos time!
All of time is important to God – whether it is chronos or kairos. However,
it is kairos that especially has eternal significance. It is a manifestation
of eternity, and is measured against the backdrop of eternity – which is
timeless. This is the realm that God alone dwells within. While we are