Lent- Big Grapes

I listen to a lot quite a few different Christian speakers throughout the week.  When I was sick last week I was able to catch up on Dr. Charles Stanley.  I typically don't catch him but when you are lying in bed you get a chance to really clean out the DVR.  He had the last two messages in a series of Faith.  The one really caught my attention because it was regarding the grapes that the spies brought back from Canann.


The story can be found in Numbers 13.  In a nutshell, the Israelites had spent a couple of years crossing the desert.  They sent in twelves spies to see what the land looked like.  Two of them came back with the report that the land was flowing with milk and honey and they brought back a bunch of grapes that was so large that they had to carry the grapes between two men.  The other twelve said that there were giants and they should not try and enter the land.


But God had told them they would be victorious.... and they chose not to listen so they spent the next 40 years or so going around the desert, and the adults, except for Caleb and Joshua, did not enter the land.

Part of the reason this story caught my attention is that three days before I listented to it, the pastor at our church spoke on it.  And that, coupled with the fact that I probably would have never listened to this Charles Stanley, made me sit up and take notice.  


So I kept noodling all of this over in my feverish brain.  I started thinking about all the things that God has done in my life.  Maybe those were the grapes.  No... The grapes were a sign of the future.  So I just started drawing circles in my journal to represent the grapes and asking God to fill them in.  What are the grapes in my future?  I don't know if I have a prophetic gifting but I do know God has given me glimpses.  He says he gives us the desires of our hearts.. when we are in tune with Him, we have His desires.


So I started noodling on that.  It is SUPER hard when you have a child with special needs to really see into the future.  But even that is an act of worship... going to Him to fill in the blanks of what the grapes are..to TRUST in Him.  


When I was a young girl I read a book called Somebody go Bang a Drum.  It was about a family who had a TON of kids..like 10 or 20.  I have had that dream since then and I still do.  I do not think it will be filled the 'natural' way.  I have a friend who lives my dream.  Mine may look different but I still think somehow it will happen.


I still, as many of you may already know, have that dream to get in an RV and go on the open road.  I have one little man in the house on the same page but alas a miracle will have to happen for the big man to want to do this... but stranger things have happened.. it is still a dream.


I have a dream this summer to go to Chicago with the kid and the hubby and meet my sister there.  A smaller dream that is 'do-able.'   Kid has larger dreams... Disney, Atlantis, the moon....


So anyway...  I am really trying to fill in the blanks on what the grapes of the future might be.  As a reforming pescimist, it isn't easy... but with God, all things are possible.  God wants us to focus on the grapes and not the giants.