Kairos Time

The Wellspring post:  Playdates with God:  Transformed

I can see the steeple of a neighboring church through the window and I fix my gaze on the rise of it ascending from that hill of old stone. We are talking about church administration, only in a roundabout way.

How do we become a church that transforms lives in the land we’ve been given? Our instructorasks.

He frames the whole class in terms of this book and I am smitten. That Henri Nouwen has a way with words. And we talk about a community that transforms and what that means. And how change is necessary and healthy and how, as leaders, we must learn to not only navigate change, but, to regularly introduce it.

And after all this talk about change and being missional and conflict and leadership he says this…

To be a church that transforms we must first allow ourselves to be transformed…

And I am looking at that steeple through the window…wondering about all the transformation that has happened under its cross. And about all that has stayed the same. And I feel it creep through my core—the slow change;the opened eyes.

How do I miss it so often? How do I close my eyes to this?

I felt a brief moment of kairos time the other day, I recently told my pastor. I was pouring a pitcher of water in the coffee maker and that was it. I suddenly loved that water. I loved pouring it. And nothing else mattered except what I was doing in that moment. And God was therewith me. It was so real, so…heartbreaking.

Her eyes teared up and I received that as gift.

We must first be transformed…

And I think it’s not something that happens all at once or that we are even aware of happening but it is that slow movement of our hearts in time with the Divine. The giving over in each moment…

I know why the steeple reaches up. And so, this morning, Ido too. I stand in a place in the rain and lift up my hands…lift it all up.

Transform me, I plead. Transform.

And the rain falls down, melts along my cheek and flattens my hair and I am changed.

And there is nothing for it except to go back inside and put in another load of laundry.


How do you embrace the God-joy? Every Monday I’ll be sharing one of my Playdates with God. I would love to hear about yours. It can be anything: outside, quiet time. Maybe it’s solitary. Maybe it’s loud and crowded. Just find Him. Be with Him. And come tell us about it.