the dot or the line?

“Will you live for the dot or the line?”  The dot being my short life on earth and the line being eternity.  In many ways, that thought translated into my vocational choice. Today, as I was reading a little e-book by Calvin Miller, The Disciplined Life, that idea got challenged in a fresh way.  In it, Miller discusses both materialism and busyness. Since my theme for the year is “editing,” his section on time and the use of it caught my attention.

 “God is always present tense.”

When I first read this, it kind of jarred me. He cites the times that Jesus said, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…”  Jesus did not say “I was…”  What Jesus always says about Himself is, “I am….”  Miller goes on to say that “God’s time is kairos.”

We live in chronos, the sequential passing of time, that dictates so much of our lives- having to get here or there, rushing around to meet deadlines.  We are occupied with the activities that make up our lives. We become wrapped up in the dot.

If God’s time is kairos time, then living for eternity means everyday I’m looking for those moments that God has planned.  Every encounter with a person is an opportunity to live for the line, to “make the most of the opportunity.”  The Greek for opportunity in this verse is kairos, not chronos.

The passage goes on to say “understand what the will of the Lord is,” and “be filled with the Spirit.”  We need our minds to be renewed, aligned to the will of God, and to be filled with the Spirit in order to both discern and carry out His will in our moments. We have to perceive the kairos in order to redeem it.  So many time, caught up in the demands of chronos, I miss the kairos.

“The clock belongs to Christ, and each tick summons us to surrender every second to the glory of his name.”

If the clock truly belongs to Christ, then to live for the line means more than a vocational choice.  Every day, regardless of my vocation, I have the opportunity to live for the line- to do the will of God, to see every encounter as a kairos moment, to look for the  reason God has this person in my path.

to whom does my time belong?

Both quotes are from Calvin Miller’s short e book, A Disciplined Life,  kindle edition, published by Bethany House.

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