On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.
Ever wonder why we have a leap year? We have leap years so our seasons will start on about the same calendar date each calendar year. If we never observed leap years, we’d eventually celebrate the Fourth of July in the middle of winter and Christmas in the summer. There are claims out there that Joshua’s prayer for the sun to stand still during a battle resulted in a lost day that has to be made up for with leap years. It’s just a theory. Kind of fun to think about it though. In order to establish a resounding victory over the Amorites, Joshua realized that there was insufficient daylight to complete the task. So he made an astonishing command that the sun and moon stop moving across the sky and God honored his prayer. Perhaps, more than any other passage in the Bible, Joshua’s long day has sparked an increasingly intense debate where the geo-centricity of an immovable, flat earth, where the sun and moon rise from one end of the heavens and circle to their other end, is taken literally rather than the currently accepted heliocentric model where a moving earth orbits a travelling sun in an ever-expanding universe. Joshua not only showed great courage but also a child-like dependency in the Lord…and a willingness to believe His Word and to obey His instructions. Joshua may or may not be the reason for leap years, but like Joshua, may we trust our Heavenly Father in all things and not lean on our own, and very limited understanding. May we give Him the glory and praise to which He is due.
Spiritual Steve 