The Gift of Leap Day

Holy Schnikes!  It snuck up on me, but tomorrow is the first Thursday of March, which means it is Comment Day.  Read all the blogs you can, and leave a comment on each of them. Be sure and join in the fun!!!!


Today is a gift. I guess in the larger sense every day is a gift, but today is special.  Once every 4 years we get an extra day.  A bonus day. Leap Day!  It should be such an extraordinary day, a day in which we celebrate an extra 24 hours inserted into our far too busy lives.  It should be a day in which we do the amazing and dream about the miraculous.  It is a gift we only receive once every 1460 days.  So why does it feel so ordinary?


Like so many other things, we have allowed this extraordinary day to become ordinary because we are prisoners of our own lives.  Every day comes with an agenda, and the agenda seldom changes.  We are so caught up in our lives that we often forget to actually live them.  We go through the motions.  We will let this gift of 24 extra hours pass without doing anything of note in the name of Jesus.  Remember John 10:10, where Jesus tells us he came to bring us life in the here and now?  We forget so quickly. Today, like so many other days, we will not forgive someone we need to forgive. We will not tell someone special how much we love them.  We will not offer prayers for the lost and the hurting.  And we will not do these things because we are too busy being wrapped up in our own lives.


I know as I begin this day with prayer that there is much reason to stand in awe of what God is going to do today. I have friends who may have a baby today-a rare and glorious Leap Day baby!  I have friends who may sell their home today, and in doing so will embark on a journey they can barely even imagine at this point.  But not every thing that is extraordinary feels that "BIG."  I have several dear friends whom I love very much who will at some point today make my day with a call or a text.  My wife and son will both tell me that they love me. And somewhere today I will have the opportunity to share the love of God whose name is Jesus with a friend or a neighbor. These things may sound commonplace, but they are truly extraordinary.


So here is my challenge to you- and me- today.  What are you going to do with this 24 hour gift that will make it stand out in your own personal history? How will you serve God today in a way that transcends your usual efforts?  Where in your life will you step out of your comfort zone and take a LEAP of faith?  Who is it in your life that needs you to be extraordinary today?  We complain all the time about how busy we are and how we wish there were more hours in a day.  Here are 24 more hours.  What will you do with them?


Because of Jesus,