How Krispy Kreme is honoring Leap Day birthdays

In honor of Leap Day, Krispy Kreme is giving a free dozen original glazed donuts to anyone who has a February 29 birthday. This news caused me to wonder: How many donuts could the company potentially give away? It turns out, the odds of a Leap Day birthday are 1 in 1,461, equaling about five million people in the world.

I also learned that people with Leap Year birthdays are called “Leaplings,” which doesn’t seem like an altogether flattering title. And that they can have problems with health systems, insurance policies, and other organizations that require a birthday but don’t have February 29 built in.

Whether your birthday is today or not, you should be grateful for Leap Day. As one physics instructor notes, “Without the leap years, after a few hundred years we will have summer in November. Christmas will be in summer. There will be no snow. There will be no feeling of Christmas.”

Accordingly, we should be thankful for Leap Day when it occurs again in 2028. That is, if we make it to 2028.

Wildfire shuts down nuclear weapons facility

This week, we’ve been exploring ways to find optimism in pessimistic times. Today’s news demonstrates the relevance of our theme:

• A cyberattack shut down a pharmacy system that handles fifteen billion healthcare transactions annually.
• The co-director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute told MIT Technology Review that AI poses “catastrophic risks to society.”
• The founder of Anthropic, who has raised $7.3 billion for his AI start-up, says there’s a 10 percent to 25 percent chance AI technology could destroy humanity.
• Demonstrating how difficult it will be for Israel to eradicate Hamas, the terror group’s Lebanon branch fired forty rockets into Israel yesterday morning.
• Scientists are warning that ancient viruses frozen in the Arctic permafrost could be released by Earth’s warming climate and unleash a major disease outbreak.
• A wildfire in the Texas panhandle forced a temporary shutdown of the nation’s primary nuclear weapons facility. The blaze is only 3 percent contained as of this morning and is now the second-largest in state history. At least one person has died in the wildfire.

David could have been reading today’s Daily Article with his observation:

Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Surely a man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather! (Psalm 39:5–6).

However, his response is the path to encouragement we need: “Now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you” (v. 7).

What are some practical ways to share this hope with our broken culture?

Stay right with God so you can partner with him

The ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus claimed, “God always strives together with those who strive.” To partner with a holy God, however, we must first strive to be a holy people.

Thus, “let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lᴏʀᴅ!” (Lamentations 3:40). To do this, ask the Spirit to reveal anything in your life that displeases your holy God, then confess what comes to mind and claim your Father’s forgiveness. Then spend time in Scripture and worship, seeking to think biblically so you can act redemptively.

Now you can claim Jesus’ promise: “Everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). Measure your time with God by the Christlike character it is intended to produce (Romans 8:29), knowing that “out of the abundance of the heart [the] mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).

Trust God to send you where he can best use you

Joseph left Canaan for Egypt as a slave with nothing, but he later returned with “both chariots and horsemen” in a “very great company” (Genesis 50:9). God redeems all he allows, as Joseph told his brothers: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (v. 20).

Like Joseph, we can trust God’s perfect will, knowing that he will only lead us where he can best use us. Then we can seek his will for each day, knowing that his plan yesterday may not be his plan today. He led Israel to march into the flooded Jordan River, then he led them to march around the fortified city of Jericho. If they had reversed the two, they would never have conquered their promised land or established the nation through whom our Messiah would come one day.

You are God’s ambassador (2 Corinthians 5:20), his missionary not only to where you are but also to when you are. Be faithful in this day because this is the only day there is. As I often say, all of God there is, is in this moment.

“The place God calls you to”

St. Cyprian (200–258) advised: “Before, we wandered in the darkness of death, aimlessly and blindly. Now we are enlightened by the light of grace and are to keep to the highway of life, with the Lord to precede and direct us.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said of this “highway of life”: “God does not give us everything we want, but he does fulfill his promises, leading us along the best and straightest paths to himself.”

In describing such “paths,” the theologian and novelist Frederick Buechner famously noted:

The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

Where is that “place” for you today?

NOTE: Are you in the midst of sickness, hurt, heartbreak, depression, anxiety, fear, or grief? When you’re in the middle of an overwhelming storm in life, how do you find peace? A Great Calm is a book of devotionals to help you draw near to the One who can increase your faith and calm your soul, even if the storms continue. I encourage you to pick up a copy of A Great Calm today so that you or a loved one can experience the great calm of Christ and be strengthened for any storm that comes your way.

Thursday news to know

• Top lawmakers strike funding deal, potentially averting weekend shutdown
• Biden and Trump both plan trips to the Mexico border Thursday, angling for advantage on immigration
• $1 billion donation will provide free tuition at a Bronx medical school
• Mitch McConnell to end long tenure as top US Senate Republican
• On this day in 1940: Hattie McDaniel becomes first African American actress to win Oscar

Quote for the day

“The greatest roadblock to Satan’s work is the Christian who, above all else, lives for God, walks with integrity, is filled with the Spirit, and is obedient to God’s truth.” —Billy Graham