We lost a full hour this month. In the middle of the night on March 8, we skipped right over the 2 o’clock hour and woke up sometime later a bit groggy and late for church. This practice of daylight savings was put into place to conserve energy and make full use of the daylight hours by springing forward and falling back.
In the Bible we read of an even more miraculous daylight savings, an account of the day the Lord made the sun stand still so that his servant Joshua could lead the nation of Israel to victory over the Amorites.
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.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies. . . . The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since. . . . Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel! (Joshua 10:12-14)
God gives us another show of his almighty power by suspending his own laws of nature again. King Hezekiah had grown ill, and through his prophet Isaiah the Lord told him that his time on earth was about to come to an end. Hezekiah prayed and wept to the Lord, saying, “Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And the Lord answered, “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you” (2 Kings 20:3,5). And then Hezekiah asked for a sign that this would be so.
Isaiah answered, “This is the Lord’s sign to you that the Lord will do what he has promised: Shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or shall it go back ten steps?” “It is a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps,” said Hezekiah. “Rather, have it go back ten steps.” Then the prophet Isaiah called on the Lord, and the Lord made the shadow go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz. (2 Kings 20:9-11)
Basically, Hezekiah asked God if he could turn back time, and God did.
So what do these accounts have to do with us today?
- Our Creator-God is in control of the universe. Since God created everything, we can be confident that he can circumvent the laws of physics that he put into place and that he can do this without wreaking havoc on his creation. Some have tried to argue away the miracles in both of these Bible accounts, citing eclipses or seeking other rational explanations. But since we know that God is all-powerful, we know that he can stop the sun and moon (or stop the earth from rotating), freeze the laws of physics, and still maintain the universe. Any other view is a very low, illogical, and dishonoring view of an omnipotent Creator-God. He does not need our help to explain away a divine miracle with a humanistic and rationalistic explanation. Our Creator-God is awesome.
- God listens to our prayers. In both of these accounts, a mere man prayed for something crazy. Joshua asked for the sun to stand still so the Israelites could keep control of the battle and secure the victory in the extra daylight hours. Why would Joshua ever think that this one battle for this one small nation was worth halting the earth in its tracks? And what made Hezekiah think that his life was so important that God would extend it 15 years? How bold of him to ask God for a sign. Such boldness on the part of Joshua and Hezekiah. God listened, and he said yes.
- God is a good guy to have on our side. Just think of it—a God who laid the foundation of the earth and who can change the course of that earth to give us daylight savings in a pinch. A God who can turn back time. A God who will fight for us against earthly and spiritual enemies. A God who can do all that and then still is willing to listen to the human beings that he created. A God who cared so much about his creation that he wanted to save it by sending his Son into time and space, to die on a cross so that we might experience the joys of heaven in his awesome presence. This is the God we have by our side and on our side, night and day.
