Nathan~

      Today our Pastor preached a sermon that just seemed to speak to me. It was on 2 Samuel 7 where David wants to build a temple for God. David had a dream…. and an honorable one. I mean, what could be better that doing something so amazing, so lavish, so beautiful, so costly, for God?  But what did God say? He said ‘No, I have a better plan.’  From an earthly perspective it must have seemed crazy at the time….. But God asked David to give up his dream, to let go and let his dream die and to embrace God’s dream. I had never realized the full beauty of chapter 7 until the last 2 wks as Pastor has taken us through it.  As I was thinking over the sermon several things came to mind….

  Nathan had dreams, we all had dreams for Nathan, dreams that were good. Dreams of a long life as a mighty man of God, dreams of seeing all his potential fulfilled, beautiful, God honoring dreams, none of which could be fulfilled in 18 short years. All those dreams had to die when Nathan did, and God’s dream was realized for Nathan’s life. A dream of perfection, of un-distracted worship, of whole hearted devotion. Dreams too big, too amazing, too wonderful for me to comprehend, fuller than I can imagine……  Not that our dreams were bad, but God’s were better.

  David’s response to God was beautiful….. He was so humble, so awed at the awesomeness of God, at his goodness and mercy.  I think that each of us that loved Nathan were given a choice. We could rebel, try to stubbornly cling to our dreams, to be angry that God didn’t choose to use our good dreams, or we could let the dream die. We could could gracefully submit to His will, we could choose to believe that His dream was best, come in humility to the author of the dream. We had to choose to look for areas that God’s dream was playing out and God was faithful….. although we will not see the fullness of the dream until we too get to go home, He has shown us a small glimpse. We have seen lives touched that wouldn’t have been touched any other way, we see spiritual growth in our lives, we see mercy and grace.

It’s not easy but I pray that my response will always be as David’s  “Who am I?”

 

                      

  After Nathan died my Mom was given a little sign that said this (or fairly close to this):

___________________________

God answers prayers 3 ways:

1- Yes

2- Wait

3- I have a better plan

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I like this so much better than “no” because it isn’t just no, it is so much more……. I hope I always remember that His plan is the best, regardless of how painful it might be.

Nathan 07/07/1990 – 09/27/2008