It’s been quite awhile since I have posted anything, and it seems like the right moment to once again share some thoughts.

To begin with, a bit of introduction or reintroduction may be in order. I am a retired American Baptist pastor having served for more than forty years in the local church. Hence, my comments and reflections are unashamedly biased by my commitment to Christ and the church, as well as informed by education and experience.

While I would not presume to speak for all retired persons, my experience is that in retirement one has to re-identify oneself. For years I was known as “pastor.” That role defined not only what I did, but who I was. There were certain expectations in the minds of individuals, both within and outside the church of what a pastor was expected to do and speak. I have no regrets regarding retirement. However, free time and the lack of a structured schedule, a questioning of “what’s next” push one to examine one’s sense of purpose and value. The phone no longer rings with a sense of urgency requiring one to don the pastoral hat and rush to hospital or home.

In an attempt to provide some structure I have taken a part time job as a docent in a small museum in our community. One Sunday afternoon a young woman came into the museum wearing a tee shirt with the phrase, “trust the process” emblazoned on the front. Under the words was a scriptural reference Jeremiah 29:11. This verse has always held special meaning for me and I find myself drawn to its words even more as I struggle to determine God’s plan for what’s next.

The words of Jeremiah were written to people held captive in a foreign land. In the letter that the prophet wrote to the exiles he encouraged them to “Build houses, plant gardens, marry and raise families, seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:5-7 NRSV).

The context in which the words were written is important. Jeremiah sent this letter to all the captives in Babylon following the first deportation of the king, the queen mother, and others in 597 BCE. (New Interpreter’s Study Bible Notes) The letter makes it clear that this separation will not be short-lived. Verse ten indicates an exile of seventy years. Although the exile did not last that long, the letter makes it clear that the exiles need to resume the domestic life that was interrupted by the exile.

When this extended period of exile is completed God promises to return the exiles to their own land. It is God’s promise, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jeremiah 29:11 NRSV).

In these words we find the comfort of knowing that God is a God who has purpose and process in what God does. The exiles were told to wait.

What I have discovered is that this is a season of waiting in my life. I am not by nature a patient person, so wandering in the desert of God’s time is not always a welcomed experience. Since I am not patient, I have made a couple of failed attempts at moving God along. But what has been affirmed is that God works on God’s schedule, not mine.

The New Testament uses two words for time. Kairos (used 86 times) refers to an opportune time, a “moment” or a “season,” whereas Chronos (used 54 times) refers to a specific amount of time, such as a day or an hour.

My life is usually controlled by my allegiance to chronos. The calendar and the clock exercise their power to determine how my days and life will be structured. While these structures are important to maintaining balance in the daily activities in which I am engaged, they ignore God’s sense of time and purpose.

I am not patient-God is. The psalmist wrote: For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. (Psalm 90:4 NRSV)

The Jews and Romans divided the night watch into three or four periods of time. As such a watch in the night is a relatively short period of time. Regardless of the number of hours, the meaning is clear. God is not bound by the restrictive demands of chronos, but God works in God’s time to fulfill God’s plans. God may actually be somewhat amused by our attempts to push God to act according to our schedules.

God is a God of process. Take for example the description of creation found in the book of Genesis. The earth is described as “a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep,” (Genesis 1:2 NRSV). The breath and command of God begin the process of giving order to chaos. As God worked through the process of creation, God evaluated what had been accomplished and pronounced creation to be good.

There are those who insist on the account of creation as seven literal, twenty-four hour days. But to do so is to limit God to our understanding of time constraints. God is so far beyond our understanding of time that we dare not limit God to human restrictions. The point isn’t the time involved, but rather that in God’s process of creation order came from what had previously been “a formless dark void.”

The Gospel of John opens with a clear reference to God’s process when the writer declares, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:1-5 NRSV).

God’s intentional purpose is clear from the opening words of the Gospel. This opening paragraph is a clear reference to God’s process in creation and redemption. The first thing created in the Genesis account is light. John’s opening makes it clear that God’s intention is to bring light into the chaos that impacts our lives.

If one reads through the first two chapters of John one is struck by the fact that the Gospel writer follows the Genesis pattern of documenting Jesus’ activities on a day by day pattern. The phrase, “the next day” is repeated three times in chapter one and chapter two opens with a reference to the third day. There is order and plan in God’s activities. That is process.

In this process there is a co-mingling of chronos and kairos. When two of John’s disciples decide to follow Jesus the writer notes the time, “It was about four 0’clock in the afternoon” (John 1:39b NRSV).

God works in both spheres of time to bring about God’s purposes. It is the opportune time for the two disciples to meet Jesus, kairos, and the moment is so significant that the time, chronos, is noted. There is clear intentionality in John’s narrative. It is not a haphazard retelling of stories and happenings in the life of Jesus. Rather, the story is carefully crafted to demonstrate that God brings light into the chaos of broken lives. Nothing happens outside the sphere of God’s process.

What does it mean to trust the process when the comfortable patterns of life are disrupted? It was my choice to retire and thus to upset the patterns and structures that defined much of my life. Some folks don’t have the opportunity to make that choice for themselves. Layoffs occur causing financial concerns. Divorce divides families and sometimes parents from children. Serious illnesses can have catastrophic effects on all aspects of life. Everything we depend upon can be destroyed in a chronos moment.

Trust the process. We can only trust the process when we trust the one who is the designer and guardian of the process. Remember to whom the words of Jeremiah 29:11 were written. These words were not addressed to folks sitting comfortably in their own homes, enjoying sports on a big-screen TV, scrolling through Facebook, and relying on their 401k for retirement.

God’s process was intended to reach those who had been uprooted from everything they knew and transported as captives to a foreign land. In the midst of chaos, at just then right time, God declared: For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. (emphasis added)

God works in the spheres of chronos and kairos to bring peace and order to our lives. It doesn’t always feel like God is even present, much less working to bring about order in our lives. As I wait to discover what’s next, I am learning to trust God’s process.