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Kairos, Chronos, and the Eternal Now

Kairos, Chronos, and the Eternal Now

Last updated on: August 4, 2026 at 11:42 am by Gregory T. Smith

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Kairos, Chronos, and the Eternal Now 2026-08-04T11:42:52-08:00 Gregory T. Smith

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How can you make prayer more meaningful? By giving ordinary moments enough attention to become sacred time.

“The present is where regret can become forgiveness, where anxiety can become courage, and where we may finally become still enough to notice that God is already here.” (Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay)

The modern myth in family relationships is that quality time is more important than quantity time. Parents who don’t spend enough time with their children sometimes think they can make up for it by taking them to amusement parks and sporting events, or on expensive vacations.

Quality Time with People

Quality time is important. But the truth is that quality time usually happens because you’ve spent a quantity of time together.

No special event can replace the day-to-day conversations that happen over the dinner table, while taking a walk, riding in the car, or helping the kids with their homework. When you do those ordinary things together, an unexpected moment sometimes opens up. A child asks a question. Someone shares something they’ve been holding inside. A conversation becomes more meaningful than anyone planned.

Those are the times when you lean in and experience something sacred. You can’t manufacture those moments. They simply happen if you get out of their way and make room for them.

Quality Time with God

The same can be said about developing a relationship with God. No one can expect to pray once a month and have a deep connection with God. Our most meaningful experiences in prayer usually grow out of the regular practice of showing up.

Sometimes prayer is inspiring. But just as often, it can feel dry. Sometimes your quiet time with Jesus is moving, and sometimes it feels like you are simply going through the motions. But without the ordinary times, there probably won’t be many extraordinary ones.

Every now and then, God may grace you with a word of encouragement, a fresh understanding of Scripture, or an insight into one of life’s problems. But you can’t force it. You can’t make God speak on demand. All you can do is make yourself available and keep returning to the place of prayer.

Time Works Differently for God

In A Cry for Mercy, Henri J.M. Nouwen prays:

I want to love you, be with you, speak to you and simply stand in your presence. But I cannot make it happen.

But there is that moment in which you will come to me, as you did to your fearful disciples, and say, “Do not be afraid, it is I.” Let that moment come soon, O Lord. And if you want to delay it, then make me patient. Amen.

That last sentence is the key because it recognizes that prayer includes learning how to wait.

When you engage in daily quiet time with Jesus, remember that time works differently for God than it does for you. You experience one moment at a time. You remember the past, live in the present, and imagine the future.

Second Peter 3:8 says,

“But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.”

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

“If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn (pg. 147).”

We live on the line. We move from one moment to the next. We cannot return to yesterday, and we cannot step into tomorrow before it arrives. The present is all we actually have. And yet it is here, in this ordinary and quickly passing moment, that we encounter the eternal.

Chronos

The New Testament uses two different Greek words for what we call “time.”

Chronos is chronological time. It is clock time. It is measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years. It is the kind of time we track on calendars and watches.

Years ago, I visited a young woman who was incarcerated in a local jail. Her sentence was almost over, and she was counting the days.

“Twenty more days and I go home,” she said, delight written across her face.

But as her release drew closer, time seemed to move more slowly. Each day mattered because she was waiting for a particular day to arrive.

That was Chronos.

We know what that feels like. Sometimes time seems to fly. At other times, one afternoon can feel like a week. The clock keeps moving at the same speed, but our experience of it changes.

Kairos

Kairos is different. It refers to the right moment, the opportune moment, or a moment filled with significance.

It is the kind of time you experience when you look at your sweetheart after fifty years and say, “It seems like only yesterday that we got married.”

It may happen when you sit with a dying friend and realize that every word and every moment was sacred. Or when you hold a newborn child. Or during prayer, when you suddenly look at the clock and discover that an hour has passed without your noticing. You were not measuring the minutes. You were living inside them. That was Kairos.

The trick is learning how to turn Chronos into Kairos. We do this by paying attention.

Turning Chronos into Kairos

All of history has worked together to produce this moment and no other moment. This minute, this second in which you live, is the only moment in which you can breathe, love, choose, forgive, pray, listen, or become aware of God.

You cannot pray yesterday. You cannot love someone tomorrow. You can only do those things now.

Psalm 90:1–2, 4, 12 says:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.… A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.

You turn Chronos into Kairos whenever you become aware of the eternal now.

The Eternal Now

In The Eternal Now, chapter 11, theologian Paul Tillich writes:

“The mystery of the future and the mystery of the past are united in the mystery of the present.… Every moment of time reaches into the eternal.”

We carry the past with us through memory. We carry the future with us through hope, fear, and anticipation. But we don’t experience the past in the past, and we can’t feel the future in the future. Both live in the present.

The present is where regret can become forgiveness, where anxiety can become courage, and where we may finally become still enough to notice that God is already here.

Psalm 90:12 says,

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

My incarcerated friend had learned to number her days. She knew that the choices of her past had helped bring her to that jail. She also knew that the choices she made after her release would shape her future. She didn’t take time for granted. She was learning to inhabit the present rather than simply endure it.

When we take time for granted, we miss much of our own lives. We rush through one day so we can get to another. We replay the past or live in dread of the future. Meanwhile, the present passes almost unnoticed. But when we become aware that our time is limited, each day becomes precious.

Prayer is one way that we can experience this sacred time. We schedule some Chronos carving time out of our day. We sit down, read a scripture passage, finger some prayer beads, breathe, pray, listen, or make our requests known to God. And sometimes, without our being able to explain exactly how it happened, Chronos becomes Kairos.

The Practice of the Presence of God

Brother Lawrence called this “the practice of the presence of God.” It means becoming attentive to God not only during formal prayer, but while washing dishes, walking, working, eating, listening, resting, and moving through the ordinary hours of the day.

We cannot stop time. We cannot return to the past or guarantee the future. But we can be present. We can give our attention to the One who is called the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. And we can receive this moment, however ordinary it may seem, as an invitation into the eternal now.

For related reading, check out my other articles:

If this reflection helped you slow down and become more present, consider supporting my work on Patreon. Your support helps me keep creating thoughtful, practical resources for prayer, spiritual growth, and life beyond rigid religion.

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About Gregory T. Smith

I live in the beautiful Fraser Valley of British Columbia and work in northern Washington State as a behavioral health specialist with people experiencing homelessness and those who are overly involved in the criminal justice system. Before that, I spent over a quarter-century as lead pastor of several Virginia churches. My newspaper column, “Spirit and Truth,” ran in Virginia newspapers for fifteen years. I am one of fourteen contributing authors of the Patheos/Quoir Publishing book “Sitting in the Shade of Another Tree: What We Learn by Listening to Other Faiths.” I hold a degree in Religious Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University and also studied at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. My wife Christina and I have seven children between us, and we are still collecting grandchildren. You can read more about the author here.

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