Why is Leap Day in February?  Wouldn’t it be better to have an extra day around one of our three-day summer holiday weekends when we have more sunlight to enjoy?

Perhaps Congress can move Leap Day to either Memorial Day or Labor Day Weekend.  There is still time for this to become a GOP campaign issue before Super Tuesday.

Leap Day is not only an extra day of winter, but it becomes a day when February’s financial savings are diminished.

February is my bank account’s favorite month.  With 2-3 fewer days than other months household salaries, pensions, and social security benefits do not need to stretch as far.

While Leap Year still affords us a bit of elastic, the benefit of the shorter month to our bottom line is lessened.

Daily necessities come regularly and without interruption.  Everyday brings expenses: water, heat, groceries, gasoline, etc.  These expenses are like waves at the beach, which roll-in to shore every minute of everyday.

The regularity of daily expenses is a source of anxiety for many.  Cardinal Wolsey’s political poem speaks to our fears:

Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor doggie a bone,
When she got there
The cupboard was bare
So the poor little doggie had none.

We fear running out.  It’s this uncertainty that leads people to be hoarders of either trash or their financial stash.

When God led the Hebrew slaves from Pharaoh’s plantations to freedom in the wilderness, the people were more anxious about their daily provisions than celebrating their emancipation.  To ease their anxiety, God provided them daily bread.  (See Exodus 16)

God provided manna on a daily basis.  It could not be hoarded and saved for a rainy day nor for Leap Day.  For forty years the people of God learned to rely on Him, not their banker, to provide their daily needs.

Better have God for your guardian, than the Bank of England for your possession. You might spend the wealth of the Indies, but the infinite riches of God you can never exhaust. (1)

.

Look at the birds of the air: 

they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,

and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. 

Are you not of more value than they? (2)

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1. Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening : Daily Readings, Complete and unabridged; New modern edition. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006).

2. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Mt 6:26.