Opportune time, the appointed time, the ripe moment.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NKJV)
Welcome to Day 18 of our 40 days of Prayer & Fasting. This is Day 4 of our 5 Days of Providence. We’ve been speaking about the providence of God this week.
On Day 1, we settled the concept of sovereignty: that God answers to no one and to nothing, and, for the believer, God's sovereignty is for us, not against us. On Day 2, we considered supernatural leading as something available to us in the providence of God, which is that God wants to lead you; He wants to take you by the hand and tell you where to go and what to do. And on Day 3, we spoke about God’s providence in our purpose and destiny.
Today we are considering another aspect of divine providence: Kairos. Kairos is a dimension of God's providence that most believers have not learnt to work with. In Greek, there were two distinct words for time. The first is Chronos, which means clock time. Sequential. Quantitative. Measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years. A classic portion of Scripture that is used to establish this idea is:
Ecclesiastes 3:1
New King James Version
1 To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
If you read on in this chapter, you’d see Scripture say there’s a time to be born, a time to die, a time to sow, a time to harvest. So the idea is there is time for everything.
The second is Kairos, and Kairos means opportune time, the appointed time, the ripe moment.
Ecclesiastes 9:11
New King James Version
11 I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all.
Under normal Chronos logic, the fastest wins the race, the strongest wins the battle, the wise eat the bread. But Solomon says he has observed that's not always what happens, because something else intervenes: time and chance. One Kairos moment can outrun forty years of Chronos. People of the world tend to attribute certain things to luck: two people meet for the first time, one of them offers the other a job, a car, a relocation plan out of the country simply because they just liked their face. That’s not luck, that’s Kairos.
When Kairos happens, it feels like the long years of Chronos suddenly add up. It’s like God compressed time. Think about Joseph. Thirteen years. That is how long it took from the pit his brothers threw him into to the day he stood in front of Pharaoh. In the period of thirteen years, he was sold into slavery, ran Potiphar's house, got falsely accused, was forgotten in a prison cell by a cupbearer who promised to remember him and didn't. There is no way you can logically explain a slave becoming the second most powerful man in Egypt. It is the mercy of God! It’s simply Kairos!
There are things that, no matter how much or how long you work for it, won’t come except for Kairos, being in the right place at the right time. Think about it practically. Somewhere in this world right now, there might be someone with more raw musical ability than anyone alive but who does not have access to any instrument. If you study the richest people alive, a very significant part of why their lives turned out that way, apart from maybe sheer diligence, was because of the immense opportunities that they had open to them. They just had the privilege to be in the right places, with the right people at the right time, with the right opportunity. How can you explain that?
Many believers go about their lives almost struggling because they don’t know Kairos! We have not learnt to discern the seasons! We have not learnt to know when the time has shifted from regular time to an appointed moment. It’s something to master.
1 Chronicles 12:32
New King James Version
32 Of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their command.
The Bible speaks about the sons of Issachar. It says they had an understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do. They knew what time it was and knew to tell Israel to act accordingly. This can be the testimony of your life as well that you have an understanding of the times, that you’re discerning of the times of Kairos and the seasons of Chronos. There is a God that can orchestrate a man’s life, a God that can order a man’s steps, a God that can cause Kairos to happen, cause things to align, and can compress time.
This doesn’t mean you should refrain from doing what you ought to do per day. On the contrary, you would see from examples in Scripture that what you do with the ordinary seasons, the wilderness, the waiting, the Chronos is what would determine how ready you would be for Kairos. In fact, a rightly managed Chronos is Kairos!
No king would put a nation’s resources into the hands of a man simply because he could interpret dreams. Joseph, after he interpreted the dream, went ahead and gave managerial advice. There was something about the ordinary moments of managing Potiphar’s house that must have prepared Joseph for that moment, such that the king could give him his signet ring and put Joseph in charge of the resources.
In the wilderness, in the waiting, in the pruning, a huge mistake would be to take Chronos for granted because you’re awaiting a Kairos. Anticipate Kairos; anticipate that God can cause things to align at his appointed time for you, but the Scripture is clear about the kind of man that can sustain Kairos.
Proverbs 22:29
New King James Version
29 Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before unknown men.
"Excels in his work" did not happen in a day. It was built in seasons nobody paid attention. Joseph did not walk out of the pit straight into Pharaoh's palace. He went to Potiphar's house first, and he was faithful there. Then he went to prison, and he was faithful there too. Every single place he stood, the people around him could tell he was trustworthy with what little he'd been given long before Pharaoh ever heard his name. God was not only teaching Joseph to interpret dreams. Interpretation was the gift. Managing a nation was something else entirely, and that had to be built in the parts of the story that looked like nothing was happening at all. The point of it all is: how would you steward your Chronos if you knew that it’s part of God’s providence for you to experience Kairos?
Some people work so much and see nothing. Some work a little, and there’s a massive boom because they followed an instruction. There are examples of people in Scripture who people had even written off their cases; they had waited long for a promise, it seemed like it was never going to happen, but when it was time, it happened, and it was by nothing they did. This is to balance all you have read because you may begin to see the Kairos beyond a function of a mere principle and a function of God’s mercy.
Think about Sarah. She was ninety years old, and it was biologically infeasible that she would have a child anymore. There was no principle she could apply, no discipline she could add, no year of Chronos she had left to invest. She even laughed at the idea because it was, by every natural measure, over.
Genesis 18:11-14
New King James Version
11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.
12 Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?”
13 And the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?’
14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”
“At the appointed time”, not "when Sarah finally does something right.", not "when she qualifies." The text doesn't record a single new discipline Sarah picked up in her nineties to earn this. It just says the appointed time arrived, and what a hundred years of trying could never produce, one word from God accomplished. That is not a reward for labour.
Think about Hannah. Year after year she went up to the temple, provoked and mocked by Peninnah for her barrenness, wept until she couldn't eat. Nothing in the text says Hannah discovered some new key that finally unlocked her miracle, no changed routine, no different strategy. She simply prayed in bitterness of soul one more time, and this time the priest said Go in peace, and the very next chapter she conceives.
1 Samuel 1:19-20
New King James Version
19 Then they rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord, and returned and came to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her.
20 So it came to pass in the process of time that Hannah conceived and bore a son, and called his name 6Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked for him from the Lord.”
The LORD remembered her. That's the language Scripture uses, not "the LORD rewarded her effort," but He remembered her. The delay was never about what she was lacking, only about a moment that hadn't arrived yet. It was not yet time, and when it was time, she conceived.
Kairos is the mercy of God that compresses the wilderness time and makes it seem like everything happened in one day. You can anticipate it! It’s an advantage you have. It’s the providence of God for you!
A few things to hold onto as you read this devotional:
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Manage your Chronos like it matters, because it does. Every hour of discipline, every unseen act of faithfulness, every season of preparation nobody is applauding, is not being wasted; it is being converted into the very thing that will make your Kairos sustainable.
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Stop waiting for permission to start preparing. You do not need an anointing ceremony to start becoming excellent. David was already excellent with a sling and a harp long before Samuel ever showed up with the oil. Prepare in the field, before anyone is watching, so that when the stage comes, you are not starting from zero.
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Recognize Kairos when it shows up! It might look like an opportunity or a miracle, and sometimes Kairos would not look like it. The travelling men that Abraham entertained in his house did not look like angels; it took discernment. Sometimes it can look like a delay, a closed door, a setback.
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Do not despise the years that felt unfair. Whatever felt like your brothers overlooking you, your family narrowing their eyes at you, people who couldn't see past what you were doing in secret, all of that was quietly becoming your track record. Nothing you have walked through faithfully has been forgotten. It is becoming your testimony, and your testimony is what will carry weight the day Kairos comes.
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When the door opens, walk through it boldly; don’t shrink. False humility has cost people their Kairos as much as impatience has. When the moment comes, you will not have time to build confidence from scratch; you build it now, in secret, so it is already there when you need it.
With Love,
The Catalyst,
Pastor Michael Ipaye.
Prayer
Lord, my times are in Your hand. I am prepared by Chronos, and I recognise Kairos! I discern the times and seasons accurately, and I align myself.
