Free The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas by Ann Voskamp Page B

free , to lavishly give away your gifts when all your value, worth, joy, and riches are in the greatest of gifts.
    Why, writes George Müller, would anyone inside the gate “seek to be rich, and great, and honored in that world where his Lord was poor, and mean, and despised”? [25]
    You can see it during Advent —over on the west side, over in the slum, over the backyard fence —the way someone reaches out a hand and someone weak grabs hold. And all the gates give way to God.
    For such a time as this.

    God made you for such a time as this. Find one person you can help today in a time of need.

    Enemy-occupied territory —that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed . . . and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.
    C. S. LEWIS

    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 toalways 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