This week’s devotions are based on this week’s message: Shadows: A Glimpse of a Stairway! (WATCH HERE)
Happy February 29!
This unique day occurs every four years as the calendar catches up with the orbit of the earth around the sun. Every year is actually 365.2421 days…so every four years the short month of February gets one extra day…Leap year!
Since this day comes around only once every four years, permit a few devotional musings about the day…
- Leap day reminds us that the Lord determines the days, not man.
On day four of creation, God set the sun, moon and stars in the sky to be the time keepers of the world he was creating. The periods of light and dark would now be governed by the sun and the moon. These would serve as “signs to mark sacred times, days and years.”
Genesis 1:4 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
- Leap day is a reminder that even our calendar is governed by the Lord of Creation, not arbitrary divisions of man or the product of random chance.
We know that leap years come every four years. However, over the centuries the calendar would still be off by 11 minutes a year. So in the 16th century, Pope Gregory XIII commissioned what we know as the “Gregorian Calendar” which kept the every four year leap day, but eliminated it in years not divisible by 400. So 2100 will NOT be a leap year (for all you toddlers and teens who may be alive then, please note this anomaly!) What is amazing about the world the Lord created is that the time of orbit doesn’t change. Man has just been playing with the calendar to accurately mark what God has created. God reminded Job that the movement of the heavenly bodies was his doing, not Jobs…nor ours.
Job 38:31 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt? 32 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? 33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?
- Leap day is a unique day to pause and give thanks to God for every day he allows us to enjoy…even the “extra” ones.
Sometimes it’s the unique components of our lives that lead us to pause and reflect. An “extra day” every four years is one of those opportunities. We are reminded like the writer of Psalm 118 (verse 24): This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Perhaps we look back and wonder where all the days have gone, but days like this are a reminder that every day is a gift of God and testimony to his faithfulness:
Genesis 8:22 “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
Enjoy today, an “extra day” to enjoy the blessings of the God who created this day…just for you!
Apply: Take time to pause today to reflect on the unique blessings of this leap day. Be reminded of the God who created the order of time for you to enjoy each day!
Prayer: Lord, thank you for creating a wonderful design and order to creation and giving it to me to enjoy today…and every day! AMEN.