Our philosophy of life is what matters, not so much our plans.

The Lord very commonly changes our plans, for He loves to surprise. Think Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, etc... Are you doing what you thought you'd be doing five years ago? Are you where you thought you would be? In most cases probably not. Why? God moved in and your plans had to go.

What IS important in the day by day is why and how I go about life. These two answers will describe much of who I am and what others see me as. Is knowing God at the top of my interests? Is glorifying Him my first goal? Is drawing close to His secret place my highest priority?

And I mean literally.

If so, my attitudes and actions will be what they ought to be. I can pursue my plans, within reason, but if they are moved aside by the divine hand, my philosophy will keep me perfectly on track for God's blessing.

You know why? In part, because those plans won't dominate my horizon nor will the selfish drive to accomplish them be there to hurt others along the way. "Seek ye first ..." (Mt. 6:33) is a simple, safe, and sure way to satisfaction and contentment.

I'm writing this now because it is live, here on the couch. After a relatively quiet afternoon, night, and morning, I was beginning to think intermittent discomfort and mild pain was all I would have after yesterday's lithotripsy.
But about two hours ago the light throb in my gut shot to a new level and I had 85 minutes of an agony I'll never forget. Mimi's comment when she arrived was, "You are really pale". Fighting the urge to throw up, and feeling beads of perspiration on my forehead, about all I could manage was a whisper.
And then it began to ease. I started getting drowsy, so I came to the couch. In a few minutes the kidney pain was gone. Entirely. I lay there for about 15 minutes, enjoying the delicious relief, second by second. There was no pain, none whatsoever -- it felt so good. I said, "Thank you, Lord", and Rev. 21:4 came to mind. The thought woke me up completely and I reached for the laptop to write, and that's what I'm doing . . .
There are some Christian friends reading this who are in pain, or know somebody who is. The agony may be much longer term than mine appears to be, even life threatening. They are the ones I hope to encourage.
There is a moment coming, that will arrive in the blinking of an eye, when "neither shall there be any more pain" (Rev 21:4) will become a reality. That freedom will feel so very good, so wonderfully sweet. It will swallow up the nasty memories and take away all their ugliness--not for a little while, or even for a long time, but forever!
Intense pain is horrible, for the Christian as well, but we can thank the Lord Jesus even as we shut our eyes and clench our teeth, because of the blessed hope.
Gotta quit, I think I feel something coming on again. Thanks for praying.