Lou Lindsey

Chronos and Kairos: Jesus Is There

Year Signed Covenant: 1977

Passed into Glory: 2018

There are two words for “time” in New Testament Greek: chronos - which refers to our human, chronological time - hours, days, weeks, years; and kairos - which refers to God’s time for something to happen. As I look back over six decades of chronos, I can see the hand of God working His graceful kairos, far beyond anything I could accomplish or deserve.

For many years, I didn’t really understand much about God’s grace or kairos, even though I received much from the Lord. When I was in high school out in Odessa, Texas, I was little more than a baptized pagan. As a child, my family had taken me to church, but I have discovered that you don’t become a Christian by sitting in a church house any more than you can become a chicken by sitting in a hen house. I had no personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

It was in the 1950’s, and I went to work for a CBS television station working an eight-hour shift evenings after school and on weekends. I’ll have to admit that I was attracted by the glitz of the world. It was quite an experience for a kid like me to be doing audio and video for guys like Roy Orbison, who was on our station live every Saturday. I was very busy building my own life; too busy to check out anything with God.

After graduation, I went to the University of Oklahoma where I got on with the next chapter of building my career. I really enjoyed Air Force ROTC and qualified as a flying officer on the AFOQT. Things were moving right along until the State of Oklahoma ran out of money and raised the cost of tuition. I had carefully budgeted what I had saved from working in television, and there was no extra money to cover the increased cost of college.

I withdrew from all my classes, went down to the Town Tavern and had a couple of beers, and just happened to be walking back past St. John’s Church, which was never locked in those days. I went in and sat down with nothing particular in mind. Little did I suspect that a spiritual milestone was about to take place in my life.

What happened was the Kairos of my conversion. Yes, you can be a member of a church and be standing in the need of conversion. I had the sense that evening of a deep, personal love of God for me. Always before, I felt like God, in His love and mercy, sort of put up with me, but this night Jesus was really there! For the first time in my life, I really did have an inward conviction that Jesus Christ died for me. I poured out my heart to Him confessing my rebellion and self-centeredness, and He heard my confession, wrapped me in His arms and forgave me. The next day I shared this with my pastor in one of the most meaningful times I ever spent with a spiritual director. Jesus was there, too!

And so it happened in rapid succession, a kairos of conversion, a kairos of confession, and a kairos of forgiveness. My pastor assured me of God’s love and forgiveness and told me to keep listening. Through the help of my pastor, and the loving generosity of my wife-to-be, I re-upped with the University of Oklahoma and got back to my classes. Not too long after that experience, I was out working cattle on Jeanne’s uncle’s ranch in eastern Oklahoma. Jeanne and I weren’t married yet, but things were moving that way. Well, that morning the Lord, without any warning whatsoever, in what to me was a most unlikely place, laid on me the kairos of my vocation—a call to ministry. Yes, Jesus was there working cattle right beside me and still knocking people off their horses. He had a purpose for my life, and nothing I did or did not do could make Him change His mind.

The kairos of my marriage was a very powerful time in the Lord. I was so shook up I couldn’t even say my name right in the exchange of vows. There have been a number of kairos times that Jeanne and I have shared together in over the years that we have been married. The Lord took us to minister in the inner city of Chicago in what was at that time the roughest neighborhood in the United States. We did Indian Mission ministry in Western Oklahoma and served a black congregation near downtown Oklahoma City before settling down in a “normal” parish. Surely the two do become one flesh in holy marriage because Jesus is there. God keeps pouring out a grace that is so much more constant and sustaining than our own inconsistent efforts and varying feelings. Jesus is there. He is the stability in our relationships. His is the grace for taking the initiative in forgiveness, and for loving through whatever comes from the world, our own flesh and the devil.

It took a lot of “chronos” and quite a few “kairos” incidents for the Lord to get it through my head that Christianity is not a “do-it-yourself” religion. He’s probably still working on that. We began to see the importance of the reality of the Body of Christ after being baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1968. We were part of several prayer groups in the early 1970’s, but the Lord showed us that prayer meetings were not enough to sustain the kind of life He had for us. In June 1976, several of us from our church in Duncan, Oklahoma, visited Alleluia. By August, four of our families had moved to Faith Village.

I used to fear death, but I don’t any longer. I think I’m at the point now where I understand that death will be my final “kairos moment” on this earthly pilgrimage. I know that Jesus will be there—just as He has been all along. Jesus is in each kairos: birth, baptism, prayer, conversion, confession, forgiveness, call to ministry, communion, marriage, and healing. He is even more aware of our needs and our gifts than we are. The knowledge of Jesus being where I am all through this life helps me look forward to being where He is—forever.

Jesus is there. He comes among us, not just for ourselves, but for each other. He is the one who makes “koinonia,” our life in common, possible. Jesus Himself wrote no book, established no institutional organization, did not see Himself as the founder of a great world religion. What He left behind at His death was a kind of extended family—a body of believers, relating as brothers and sisters who could share with one another the life of Jesus—who could be mutually accountable and correctable. That is what we have found in Alleluia.

Like those disciples of the New Testament, we are called by God to be family, to be community with Jesus there in our midst and teachings like Matthew 18:15 as standard operating procedures. That is the core of the heritage we want to pass on to our children and our children’s children. We never really “come to the garden alone.” We are always a member of the family or household of faith. And Jesus is there, present in His body and ministering through His people—all His people.

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