By Anna Boehk

This past weekend I spent a lot of energy contemplating time. I don’t want to make it sound like I was trying to unravel the mysteries of it, because all I wanted to do was buy a watch. I bought one, then another. Returned them both. I went to two different malls! Then I went back to the first mall and bought two more, planning to keep one, but I’m so tired of shopping for watches I decided to keep both. So now I can tell time.

But I’m still working on accepting time. Time happens to be the “theme” I chose to structure my prayer in January. You see, my prayer journal told me to “think on a quality of the Lord’s to meditate on this month” and they suggested the Lord’s majesty or might, His mercy or generosity. 

The first thing to cross my mind was how annoying He is when He drags his feet finishing the to-do list I left Him, like He’s a bad roommate or husband who doesn’t feel like taking out the trash while you’re at work.

Can I say that? That the King of the entire universe – the one who literally died to save me from myself – drives me batty when I give him a perfectly reasonable checklist and He just doesn’t do it?! It’s not hard! I just want my life to be perfect without putting the effort in!

Ah. I can’t even read what I wrote without being embarrassed. Who the heck do I think I am?

So I decided to focus my prayer this month on God’s timeliness. It’s hard because He doesn’t really have time, in the human sense of it. He is outside of it, so I guess He doesn’t have to abide by it…but I remind myself again and again that just because His time is not my time (thank God for that), He knows what He is doing, and I am not saying this for comedic effect when I say I have no idea what I’m doing.

I spent some time thinking about God’s timeliness, did a little research. I uncovered some really beautiful – really reassuring – Scriptures for this. I rummaged around in the RSV to look for verses that hit home about God’s timeliness and did it deliver.

Colossians 1:17 says, “He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.”

1 Peter 5:6 reminds us to “humble [our]selves therefore under the mighty hand of God that in due time He may exalt [us]” (the editing is my own).

Ecclesiastes, of course, in the first verse of chapter three: “for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under Heaven.”

Jude 1:25 brings it home, though, where it says “to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.” 

Not only did I find those verses, which I feel certain were written with the year 2020 in mind, I uncovered the Greek word kairos. I knew that the Greek word for time was chronos, but I found out that chronos is just a sequential unit of time, like “two o’clock” or “Tuesday” or “nighttime.” Kairos, though, is the word used to describe “the right time.” Not just a moment in the day, but the opportune moment. The proper moment. Am I explaining it right? Because kairos completely changed my outlook on this month. The idea of kairos has silenced my heart. 

I have been working with chronos in mind – okay, it’s a new decade. Okay, it’s January. Okay, I’m getting kind of old here. God has been working with kairos. He isn’t going to make things happen unless it’s the right damn time. And only He knows it! It’s both bafflingly frustrating and unbearably relieving. Both unsettling and resettling, like the upsetting pleasure that dark chocolate brings.

It’s hard to wrap my brain around the idea that God always was and always will be, so He can certainly handle waiting for the perfect moment. I have such a finite little mind. Eternity stretching both directions is too much for me. I do take comfort in the reminder that it’s not too much for God, who handles the whole eternity thing like a true pro. 

I don’t have a moving and powerful conclusion to write for you because I am really struggling with accepting that my to-do list will not be checked off as quickly as I want – and some of my requests will never be done. God is going to make me work for what I want, and then He is going to surprise me with some stuff I didn’t know I wanted, too. I need to accept that. I want to accept that! I want the peace that comes from total abandonment to God’s timeliness.

So this month I am really trying to let go of my arbitrary timeline, from my running mantra of  – “you see, God, you might remember that it’s your fault I was born when I was, which means it’s your fault I’m almost 30, which means that if I’m not a married and beautiful and successful by then, it’s also your fault” – and I am especially trying to let go of that impatient annoyance I feel when God laughs at my Honey-do. 

He isn’t a bad husband or roommate. He is God. His time is – thank God – not my time. I remind myself over and over and I look back at the Scriptures that are just riddled with God proving again and again that He’s totally got a plan and I need to chill. 

Wait with me for the kairos, okay?