The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas (16 page)

What specific gifts has God given you?

As you look at those “outside the gate,” who do you feel especially drawn to help?

How might you use some of your gifts to help others —for such a time as this?

I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guardpost. There I will wait to see what the Lord says.

HABAKKUK 2:1

     I will climb up to my watchtower

          and stand at my guardpost.

     There I will wait to see what the LORD says

          and how he will answer my complaint. . . .

     I trembled inside when I heard this;

          my lips quivered with fear.

     My legs gave way beneath me,

          and I shook in terror.

     I will wait quietly for the coming day

          when disaster will strike the people who invade us.

     Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,

          and there are no grapes on the vines;

     even though the olive crop fails,

          and the fields lie empty and barren;

     even though the flocks die in the fields,

          and the cattle barns are empty,

     yet I will rejoice in the LORD!

          I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!

     The Sovereign LORD is my strength!

          He makes me as surefooted as a deer,

          able to tread upon the heights.

HABAKKUK 2:1; 3:16-19

There are Christmas trees that have no blossoms.

There are a thousand ways you can suffer brave.

And no one knows.

No one knows that, like Habakkuk, your heart quakes a bit inside. At how headlines hit too close, how in a blink on an ordinary day, it could be one you love who is bloodied by the senseless violence, busted in a crash, begging prayers for life, getting chemo pumped through the veins. We all lose every single person we love. There is never another way. Think about that too long and you find it hard to breathe.

The economy crumbles away under your feet. If one more thing breaks down, if one medical disaster pushes you over the fragile edge, what in the world do you grab on to in this mudslide of debt? Fear is always this wild flee ahead.

Olives fail. People fail. Dreams fail.
You feel like you fail.
A thousand things mount. Some days it’s hard not to panic. You can feel it —we are driven by fear of failure. For all our frenzied running around, could it be that we are actually fleeing —trying to escape all the fears? All this pain? All this failure? We all live these lives of quiet terror. Of soundless, hidden grief. You could just bow your head in the quiet and weep for all that isn’t. For all that you aren’t.

In the barrenness of winter, Habakkuk offers this gift to
always carry close: rejoicing in the Lord happens while we still struggle in the now.

Struggling and rejoicing are not two chronological steps, one following the other, but two concurrent movements, one fluid with the other.

As the cold can move you deeper toward the fire, struggling can move you deeper toward God, who warms you with joy. Struggling can deepen joy.

Even though.

Even now.

Even though the fig trees have no blossoms and though the Christmas tree aches a bit empty, even though there are no grapes on the vine and no struggle-free days, even though the olive crop fails, even though I fail, even though
so much fails
 —even now I will rejoice in the Lord.

Even now
I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.

Even though, even now —Habakkuk turns the focus. The secret of joy is always a matter of focus: a resolute focusing on the Father, not on the fears. All fear is but the notion that God’s love ends.
When does He ever end?
When you can’t touch bottom is when you touch the depths of God.

Habakkuk rings it again defiant from the watchtower into a struggling world —I will be joyful in the God of my salvation. Re-joys, re-joices, and again. Soon the angels
will sing it: “Fear not! For behold!” The solution to fear is the gift of Christmas. “Fear not! For behold!” We have a Savior. “Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?” (Romans 8:32). He shattered the space between heaven and earth and came naked and breakable for you in a crèche. Then He lay naked and broken by you on a Cross. If He gave you His Son to save you, will He not give anything?

Hasn’t He already unequivocally earned trust? You can take your hands off your life —you don’t have to try to save yourself. Behold Him everywhere, and be held.

Though the fig tree does not blossom,
His love always does
.

Instead of explaining our struggling,
Jesus shares in it
 —because He knows mere answers are cold and His arms are warm.

The watchtower can be climbed. Stand even now at the guardpost; there are gifts.

Count, recount gifts: rejoice, re-joice. Our worlds reel unless we rejoice. A song of thanks steadies everything.

Behold the goodness of the God of your salvation everywhere, and be held —how His love falls like blossoms of grace in December.

Take time today to climb your watchtower. In those moments of quiet, reflect on the joys you’ve been given —and then repeat them.

Assurance grows by repeated conflict. . . . When we have been brought very low and helped, sorely wounded and healed, cast down and raised again . . . and when these things have been repeated to us and in us a thousand times over, we begin to learn to trust simply to the word and power of God.

JOHN NEWTON

What are you waiting on God for right now?

Where have you seen blossoms of goodness even in the most unlikely places?

Thank God for the grace to rejoice amid the broken places.

He will prepare the people for the coming of the Lord.

LUKE 1:17