Plan That Lives Quotes & Sayings

From our limited vantage point, our lives are marked by an endless series of contingencies. We frequently find ourselves, instead of acting as we planned, reacting to an unexpected turn of events. We make plans but are often forced to change those plans. But there are no contingencies with God. Our unexpected, forced change of plans is a part of His plan. God is never surprised; never caught off guard; never frustrated by unexpected developments. God does as He pleases and that which pleases Him is always for His glory and our good. — Jerry Bridges

No matter what the power source is, a sinusoidal pattern will always remain the same. Similarly, our lives have a certain pattern and that's of happiness and sorrow. We feel that we are in control of things and everything is going according to plan but life is again following a pattern. — Ackshat Deoli

With no plan of escape in sight, I've been resigned to the life of a cosseted young lady of London society as Grandmama and I pay calls. We drink tea that is too weak and never hot enough for my liking. the ladies pass the time with gossip and hearsay. This is what they have in place of freedom - time and gossip. Their lives are small and careful. I do not wish to live this way. I should like to make my mark. To venture opinions that may not be polite or ever correct but are mine nonetheless. If I am to be hanged for anything, I should like to feel that I go to the fallows on my own strength. — Libba Bray

I feel like I have to do the best job I can to basically say, "OK, I understand - you have every right to be angry, but anger is not a plan. Here's what I want to do, and that's why I hope you will support me, because I think it will actually improve the lives of Americans." — Hillary Clinton

The love for work needs to be re-enthroned in our lives. Every family should have a plan for work that touches the life of each family member so that this eternal principle will be ingrained in their lives. — M. Russell Ballard

There are risks you'll take for yourself because you know that if your plan goes wrong, it'll be too late for regrets. but if you risk the lives of others and fail, you'll have a lifetime to regret it. — Kelley Armstrong

I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers ... Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them for ourselves. — Ronald Reagan

I want to tell you a growing conviction with me, and that is that as we obey the leadings of the Spirit of God, we enable God to answer the prayers of other people. I mean that our lives, my life, is the answer to someone's prayer, prayed perhaps centuries ago.
It is more and more impossible to me to have programmes and plans because God alone has the plan, and our plans are only apt to hinder Him, and make it necessary for Him to break them up. I have the unspeakable knowledge that my life is the answer to prayers, and that God is blessing me and making me a blessing entirely of His sovereign grace and nothing to do with my merits, saving as I am bold enough to trust His leading and not the dictates of my own wisdom and common sense. — Oswald Chambers

The greatest testament of a life lived is to be missed when you are gone. It is not something you can plan for or buy ahead of time. It is a sentiment that comes freely from the lives you touch in positive ways. — Brian MacLearn

We plan our lives in long, unbroken stretches that intersect our dreams the way highways connect the city dots on a road map. But in the end we learn that life is lived in the side roads, alleys, and detours. Alan Christoffersen's diary — Richard Paul Evans

We cannot know for certain how long we have here. We cannot foresee the trials or misfortunes that will test us along the way. We cannot know God's plan for us.
What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, and love, and joy. We can use each day to show those who are closest to us how much we care about them, and treat others with the kindness and respect that we wish for ourselves. We can learn from our mistakes and grow from our failures. And we can strive at all costs to make a better world, so that someday, if we are blessed with the chance to look back on our time here, we can know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of other human beings. — Barack Obama

If you think I'm going to let six people risk their lives - !'
'because it's the first time for all of us,' said Ron.
'This is different, pretending to be me -'
'Well, none of us really fancy it, Harry,' said Fred earnestly. 'Imagine if something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, scrawny gits forever.'
Harry did not smile.
'You can't do it if I don't cooperate, you need me to give you some hair.'
'Well, that's the plan scuppered,' said George. 'Obviously there's no chance at all of us getting a bit of your hair unless you cooperate.'
'Yeah, thirteen of us against one bloke who's not allowed to use magic; we've got no chance,' said Fred. — J.K. Rowling

We waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and plan and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life. God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is. — John Piper

The success of family welfare depends on giving women complete freedom with their lives. The need of the hour is that people should plan their families as per their convenience and get the bare minimum health facilities — Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Mature readers consider reading an integral part of life. It is not something they do only to relax or to escape or if there is nothing good on television. It is something they plan for in each day, and if the day develops so that they have no time for it, they may become restless, rather like joggers who miss their run. Some - busy parents, for example - stay up late at night to read their daily quota after the house is quiet, acknowledging that having balance in their lives is more dependent on reading time than on sleep. — Judith Wynn Halsted

No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and you connive and you plan, you're not superior to sex. It's a very risky game. A man wouldn't have two-thirds of the problems he has if he didn't venture off to get fucked. It's sex that disorders our normally ordered lives. — Philip Roth

Don't plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him - that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning. — Oswald Chambers

It seemed to me that Babette and I, in the mass and variety of our purchases, in the sheer plenitude those crowded bags suggested, the weight and size and number, the familiar package designs and vivid lettering, the giant sizes, the family bargain packs with Day-Glo sale stickers, in the sense of replenishment we felt, the sense of well-being, the security and contentment these products brought to some snug home in our souls - it seemed we had achieved a fullness of being that is not known to people who need less, expect less, who plan their lives around lonely walks in the evening. — Don DeLillo

It makes a world of difference to know that God loved you enough to send His only begotten Son to suffer and die for you. Suddenly our lives and sufferings aren't meanigless accident, but part of God's loving plan for us. And our acceptance of that plan becomes our own loving response. It is the difference between being in love and living a dreary existence! — Amadeus

As far as we can tell from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people inscribe to their lives is just a delusion. — Yuval Noah Harari

Only now, in rhythmic waves, was she struck by her stupidity, her blindness, her estheronautiness, and, above all, her longing, the insult of the power of her longing, and she knew very well that is was these shortcomings that had made her so eager to interweave in his story the threads of her secret dreams of candor and of painful, purifying honesty; of a generous togetherness in which everything was possible. For a moment, with all that had been spun and stabbed and defiled within her, her face took on the expression of a frightened, abandoned girl who lunges out to bite, who lives unimaginably close to the skin's surface, ready to be drawn out like a final plan of retreat. — David Grossman

Every day His servants are dying modestly and peacefully
not a word of victory on their lips; but Christ's deep triumph in their hearts
watching the slow progress of their own decay, and yet so far emancipated from personal anxiety that they are still able to think and plan for others, not knowing that they are doing any great thing. They die, and the world hears nothing of them; and yet theirs was the completest victory. They came to the battle field, the field to which they had been looking forward all their lives, and the enemy was not to be found. There was no foe to fight with. — Frederick William Robertson

But no matter which path we take, Nessa, there will always be trying times. Faith is believing that God has a plan for our lives even when things seem to be falling apart. Trust Him with all your heart, dear. Trust yourself. Your faith is bigger than you realize. — Kristiana Gregory

We live in a fallen world with free will. We know that God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives, but we conveniently forget the flip side: the enemy hates us and has a horrible plan for our lives. His agenda is to steal, kill, and destroy.6 That doesn't mean we should live in fear, because as John reminds us, He that is in us is greater than He that is in the world.7 And "if God is for us, who can be against us?"8 But we best not forget that each of us is born on the cosmic battlefield between good and evil. And we must choose sides. In the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln, "My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side. — Mark Batterson

The basic conviction of a Christian is that God intends good for us and that he will get his way in us. He does not treat us according to our deserts, but according to his plan. He is not a police officer on patrol, watching over the universe, ready to club us if we get out of hand or put us in jail if we get obstreperous. He is a potter working with the clay of our lives, forming and reforming until, finally, he has shaped a redeemed life, a vessel fit for a kingdom. A LONG OBEDIENCE — Eugene H. Peterson

A wedding, people decide to get married, it comes out of such love for one another and then women can turn into these other people. They're planning something that's the biggest event they'll ever plan in their lives and it turns them into this other person, so it's not totally the guy's fault that he's feeling disconnected from this person. — Alison Brie

The term "universe" refers to that life plan that seems to take over despite what we have in mind - that "force" operating, seemingly on its own, that often interferes with our picture of how we would like things to be. It refers to a certain flow in our lives and the lives of others over which we have little or no control. — Susan Jeffers

As I get older, the tyranny that football exerts over my life, and therefore over the lives of people around me, is less reasonable and less attractive. Family and friends know, after long years of wearying experience, that the fixture list always has the last word in any arrangement; they understand, or at least accept, that christenings or weddings or any gatherings, which in other families would take unquestioned precedence, can only be plotted after consultation. So football is regarded as a given disability that has to be worked around. If I were wheelchair-bound, nobody close to me would organise anything in a top-floor flat, so why would they plan anything for a winter Saturday afternoon. — Nick Hornby

Schedule a comprehensive evaluation to not only provide a formal diagnosis, but to also delineate a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses. You will then be ready to participate in designing a total treatment plan that meets your unique needs. Get Treatment An effective, total treatment program is essential to future success. Such programs usually include a combination of medication, psychotherapy, coaching, alternative treatments, and necessary related services (support groups, counseling, family therapy, etc.). ADHD can have serious consequences, but it is treatable with safe and effective medications that can change people's lives. (See Question 35 for a more in-depth discussion of medications used to treat ADHD.) — Patricia O. Quinn

Self-control, openness, the ability to engage with others, to plan and to persist - these are the attributes that get people in the door and on the job, and lead to productive lives. — James Heckman

To those men and women in business, remember the ultimate end of your work: to make a better product, to create better lives. I ask you to plan for the longer term and avoid that temptation of quick and easy paper profits. — George H. W. Bush

God's road for us may not be one that appears successful from our human vantage point, yet serves as part of his divine plan to fulfill his purposes in our lives. — Dillon Burroughs

Some of the guys I've been with, they've tried to pin me down. They wanted to box me into the details, the wheres and whens and hows of our togetherness, and it always pinched my nerves that they needed to map out a plan for feelings. Other guys, they seemed totally content to let me prance in and out of their lives, relieved that they didn't have to agree to future plans, no concert tickets for a show later that summer, no prom tickets months in advance. — Emery Lord

Ponder this quote by John MacArthur until it is written in the corridors of your mind: "We need to adjust our presentation of the gospel. We cannot dismiss the fact that God hates sin and punishes sinners with eternal torment. How can we begin a gospel presentation by telling people on their way to hell that God has a wonderful plan for their lives?" It is true that God has a wonderful plan for their lives - but it is that they would repent and trust the Savior, and receive the righteousness of Christ. — Ray Comfort

Do you see, Harry? Do you see the flaw in my brilliant plan now? I had fallen into the trap I had foreseen, that I had told myself I could avoid, that I must avoid."
"I don't - "
"I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words, I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act.
"Is there a defense? I defy anyone who has watched you as I have - and I have watched you more closely than you can have imagined - not to want to save you more pain than you had already suffered. What did I care if numbers of nameless and faceless people and creatures were slaughtered in the vague future, if in the here and now you were alive, and well, and happy? I never dreamed that I would have such a person on my hands. — J.K. Rowling

In modern times, the sisters have largely disappeared from the collective consciousness, but the idea of Fate hasn't. Why do we still believe? Does it make tragedy more bearable to believe that we ourselves had no hand in it, that we couldn't have prevented it? It was always ever thus.

Things happen for a reason, says Natasha's mother. What she means is Fate has a Reason and, though you may not know it, there's a certain comfort in knowing that there's a Plan.

Natasha is different. She believes in determinism- cause and effect. One action leads to another leads to another. Your actions determine your fate. In this way she's not unlike Daniel's dad.

Daniel lives in the nebulous space in between. Maybe he wasn't meant to meet Natasha today. Maybe it was random chance after all.

But.

Once they met, the rest of it, the love between them, was inevitable. — Nicola Yoon

Sometimes it seems safer to have just enough God to get to heaven, but not so much that he radically alters our lives. — Chris Hodges

Because destiny had a different plan. They were supposed to meet later. People come into our lives at certain times for various reasons having to do with lessons to be learned. It is not a coincidence that they didn't meet at a much earlier age when they did not have other commitments. I think the reason people meet later is to learn about love in many different ways and about how to balance this with responsibility and commitment. They'll meet again in a different lifetime. They must be patient. — Brian L. Weiss

You and I were among those who used their agency to accept Heavenly Father's plan to come to earth, to have a mortal life, to progress. "We shouted for joy ... to have the opportunity of coming to the earth to receive bodies [for we knew] that we might become, through faithfulness, like unto our Father, God." Now we are here on earth, where opportunities to use our agency abound; for here "there is an opposition in all things." This opposition is essential to the purpose of our lives. — Robert D. Hales

In God's plan, our quest for personal identity is meant to drive us back to him as Creator so that we find our meaning and purpose in him.
When we live out a sense of who we are IN CHRIST we live our lives based on all we have been given by Christ. This keeps us from seeking to get those things from the people and situations around us. Much of the disappointments and heartache we experience is the result of our attempts to get something from relationships that we already have in Christ. — Timothy S. Lane

She's everything that should be loathed," he went on, staring in front of him. "Sometimes I think I hate everything in the world. No decency, no conscience. She's what people mean when they say America never grows up, America rewards the corrupt. She's the type who goes to the bad movies, acts in them, reads the love-story magazines, lives in a bungalow, and whips her husband into earning more money this year so they can buy on the installment plan next year, breaks up her neighbor's marriage - — Patricia Highsmith

Despite their depressing circumstances, the Hernandez family had a certain dignity and strength about them. They were Christians, and they taught their children that God loved them and had a plan for their lives. Their little boy, David, internalized that message of hope. He never thought of himself as a victim even though he had every reason to feel cheated. His family was at the bottom of the social ladder without even a house to live in, but his worth as an individual was rooted in his faith. — James C. Dobson

We have no other choice but to go on managing the conflict. We propose a stability plan: We want to strengthen the Palestinian Authority economically and establish mutual industrial zones and help them to develop independent energy capabilities, enabling the Palestinians to live their lives independently and have a future. This is where the European States should invest, not in NGOs that harm Israel. — Ayelet Shaked

To plot is to live. [ ... ] We start out lives in chaos, in babble. As we surge up into the world, we try to devise a shape, a plan. There is dignity in this. Your whole life is a plot, a scheme, a diagram. It is a failed scheme but that's not the point. To plot is to affirm life, to seek shape and control. Even after death, most particularly after death, the search continues. Burial rites are an attempt to complete the scheme, in ritual. Picture a state funeral, Jack. It is all precision, detail, order, design. The nation holds its breath. - (WN 292) — Don DeLillo

Michael Horton gets at the heart of this: "The heart of most religions is good advice, good techniques, good programs, good ideas, and good support systems. . . . But the heart of Christianity is Good News. It comes not as a task for us to fulfill, a mission for us to accomplish, a game plan for us to follow with the help of life coaches, but as a report that someone else has already fulfilled, accomplished, followed, and achieved everything for us. Good advice may help us in daily direction; the Good News concerning Jesus Christ saves us from sin's guilt and tyranny over our lives and the fear of death. It's Good News because it does not depend on us. It is about God and his faithfulness to his own purposes and promises. — Matt Perman

God created every one of us to be successful. Before the foundation of the world, He laid out an exact plan for our lives. And in this plan He has moments of favor that will come across our path. These moments are not ordinary. They are destiny-altering moments. — Joel Osteen

I think that I shall never scan A tree as lovely as a man ... A tree depicts divinest plan, But God himself lives in a man. — Joyce Kilmer

In real life we have a hard time recognizing serendipitous moments because we're not making the story up as we go along. It's not a lie - it's really happening to us, and we have no idea how it will end. Some of us will look back on our lives and recall events that were a bit too perfect, but until you know the whole story, it's impossible to see the universe at work, or even admit that there is something bigger than us, making sure everything that should happen does happen. If you can surrender to the idea that there might be a plan, instead of reducing every magical moment to a coincidence, then love will find you. — Renee Carlino

I cared more about your happiness than your knowing the truth, more for your peace of mind than my plan, more for your life than the lives that might be lost if the plan failed. In other words I acted exactly as Voldemort expects we fools who love to act. — J.K. Rowling

I'm a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that He can intercede in all kinds of situations, and we need to have a little faith in many things. — Sharron Angle

Lessons are built into life. Love and truth must go hand in hand. Love and deceit are contradictory. There is no such thing as love without cost. God's love to us came at the price of the death of His Son, and we can't appreciate that forgiveness and receive that love while substituting our own will for the plan He has for our lives. — Joe Gibbs

I do not think it can be disputed that while we lay heavy stress on faith (coming to Christ, trusting His promises, believing that God knows what He is doing with our lives, and hoping for heaven), we touch very lightly on repentance (binding one's conscience to God's moral law, confessing and forsaking one's sins, making restitution for past wrongs, grieving before God at the dishonor one's sins have done Him, and forming a game plan for holy living). — J.I. Packer

That which should distinguish the suffering of believers from unbelievers is the confidence that our suffering is under the control of an all-powerful and all-loving God. Our suffering has meaning and purpose in God's eternal plan, and He brings or allows to come into our lives only that which is for His glory and our good. — Jerry Bridges

The antidote to a meaningless and lawless existence was provided by humanism, a revolutionary new creed that conquered the world during the last few centuries. The humanist religion worships humanity, and expects humanity to play the part that God played in Christianity and Islam, and that the laws of nature played in Buddhism and Daoism. Whereas traditionally the great cosmic plan gave meaning to the life of humans, humanism reverses the roles and expects the experiences of humans to give meaning to the cosmos. According to humanism, humans must draw from within their inner experiences not only the meaning of their own lives, but also the meaning of the entire universe. This is the primary commandment humanism has given us: create meaning for a meaningless world. Accordingly, — Yuval Noah Harari

Maybe you believe that we fall into our future blindly, drifting from adventure to adventure, our journey zigzagging not according to plan but according to pure chance. Or just maybe, as random and haphazard as our lives seems
maybe that's exactly what the author had in mind. — Jodi Picoult

I can't hear God's voice for my kids, but I can watch and listen and pray and adjust and try not to screw up whatever He has planned for their lives. And although I can't make them listen to God, or even want to, I can plant enough seeds to swing the world in their favor. That said, as I navigate my day surrounded by the parents of gifted children (did you notice there aren't any average kids anymore - only Gifted and Disposable), here's where I get confused: if a person believes in gifts but not in God, then where - as they stand in daily admiration of their child's emergent uniqueness, their heart swelling with pride and joy and, yes, gratitude - where, then, do they send the thank-you note? — Heather Choate Davis

Paul Ricoeur has wonderful counsel for people like us. Go ahead, he says, maintain and practice your hermaneutics of suspicion. It is important to do this. Not only important, it is necessary. There are a lot of lies out there; learn to discern the truth and throw out the junk. But then reenter the book, the world, with what he calls 'a second naivete'.' Look at the world with childlike wonder, ready to be startled into surprised delight by the profuse abundance of truth and beauty and goodness that is spilling out of the skies at every moment. Cultivate a hermaneutic of adoration - see how large, how splendid, how magnificent life is.

And then practice this hermaneutic of adoration in the reading of Holy Scripture. Plan on spending the rest of our lives exploring and enjoying the world both vast and intricate that is revealed by this text. — Eugene H. Peterson

But also I find the sea too vast. It frightens me a little, though I am not sure why. It is not really the fear of drowning in it. I think it is more that the sea is a reminder of how little control we have over our lives no matter how carefully we try to plan and order them. Everything changes in ways we least expect, and everything is frighteningly vast. We are so small.'
'The fast can actually be comforting at times,' he said. 'When we lash out at ourselves for having lost control ,we are reminded that we never can be in control, that all life asks of us is to do our best to cope with what is handed to us. It is easier said than done, of course. Indeed, it is often impossible to do. But I always find a stroll on the beach reassuring. — Mary Balogh

A providence is shaping our ends; a plan is developing in our lives; a supremely wise and loving Being is making all things work together for good. In the sequel of our life's story, we shall see that there was a meaning and necessity in all the previous incidents, except those that were the result of our own folly and sin, and that even these have been made to contribute to the final result. Trust Him, child of God: He is leading you by a right way to the celestial city of habitation; and as from the terrace of eternity you review the path by which you came from the morning-land of childhood, you will confess that He has done all things well. — F.B. Meyer

I have found that one of the commonest causes of unhappiness among my patients is that they are attempting to live their lives on the deferred payment plan. They do not live, or enjoy life now, but wait for some future event or occurrence. They will be happy when they get married, when they get a better job, when they get the house paid for, when they get the children through college, when they have completed some task or won some victory. Invariably, they are disappointed. — Maxwell Maltz

The modern world lies under a pervasive sense of anguish, of being abandoned, or at least experiencing God as absent. Yet events that seem to turn our lives upside down and inside out are part of God's redemptive plan, not only for us, but for the world in which we live. God may be preparing a great awakening for the world, if God can find enough people to cooperate in this mysterious plan. — Thomas Keating

God has a plan for everyone he created and none of his creations is meant to be purposeless. Every human being for that matter was brought forth with a specific and unique duty to uptake while he lives on earth. — Israelmore Ayivor

You may think that you are insignificant in the great plan of God, but you are not. You are tremendously important to God - so much so that Jesus died for you, and the Holy Spirit lives in you. You may seem small in your own eyes, and this is good; because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. However, don't let your humility become sin by making you believe you can do nothing for God. God can use you to help Him accomplish His will on this earth. — Warren W. Wiersbe

My core message is that God has got a good plan for your lives, and we must trust Him, and let go of the past. That's my main message. — Joel Osteen

The spiritual tipping point is when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change. Sadly, too many of us get comfortable with comfort. We follow Christ to the point of inconvenience, but no further. That's when we need a prophet to walk into our lives, throw a mantle around our shoulders, and wake us up to a new possibility, a new reality. We need a prophet to boldly confront Plan B and call us back to Plan A. — Mark Batterson

Yet when our eyes see the full rainbow in Scripture - the completeness of God's plan - and know by faith that our lives are a part of God's design no matter what happens, then we can take whatever comes because we know that we are for the praise of his glory. — Bryan Chapell

God has plans and purposes for each of our lives. But the beauty is that He doesn't call us and leave us on our own. Jesus actually lives in us to pull off the amazing things that He has invited us into. — Louie Giglio

All that happens in our lives which we find painful, physically or emotionally, is for a purpose. Unfortunately, from our very limited perspective it is often not possible to see the good in it. The divine plan is not available to our eyes. — Robert S. Jepson Jr.

We are not the masters of our own destinies. We are called to plan and strategize, to work and live active lives, to attempt things that are beyond us and tackle challenges that stretch us to the limit. Yet the outcome of our efforts, even our ability to exert ourselves, is always in God's hands. — Carolyn Custis James

It is necessary to prepare and to plan so that we don't fritter away our lives. Without a goal, there can be no real success. One of the best definitions of success I have ever heard goes something like this: success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. Someone has said the trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never cross the goal line. — Thomas S. Monson

New steps. That's what it amounted to. The two of them were learning the steps that would bring them together, a dance that would take them into forever. A dance that could be nothing less than God's plan for their lives. — Karen Kingsbury

When we sit thoughtfully pondering in a quiet place and the Spirit speaks to us, there will come into our hearts and souls the things that are truly our greatest desires, those things that are more important in the long run than anything else. Away from the appeal of the world, that greatest desire usually relates to relationships with family and with the Lord. And when that priority is in place, then we begin to plan our lives with purpose. We begin to have goals that cause us to live with anticipation. — Ardeth Kapp

God has a plan for each of our lives. As hard as it is to understand and as painful as it might be, sometimes that even means Him allowing bad things to happen in order for His purpose to be fulfilled. — Cherlisa Starks Richardson

We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It's just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected. — Ben Okri

It's fascinating for us women to begin looking at our lives in five-year plans. It really does help you keep on track. If that's too hard, start with a two-year plan. — Marlo Thomas

The crisis of modern society is precisely that the youth no longer feel heroic in the plan for action that their culture has set up. They don't believe it is empirically true to the problems of their lives and times. — Ernest Becker

Jesus Christ lives. He is our Savior, our Redeemer. He is a glorious, resurrected being. He has the capacity to communicate love that is so powerful, so overwhelming as to surpass the capacity of the human tongue to express adequately. He gave His life to break the bonds of death. His Atonement made fully active the plan of happiness of His Father in Heaven. — Richard G. Scott

If you know you have to wait anyway, why not make a decision to enjoy your life while you're waiting? Why not be happy while God is in the process of changing things? After all, there's nothing we can really do to make it happen any faster. We might as well relax and enjoy our lives, knowing that at the appointed time God is going to bring his plan to pass. — Joel Osteen

It is mercy that our lives are not left for us to plan, but that our Father chooses for us; else might we sometimes turn away from our best blessings, and put from us the choicest loveliest gifts of his providence. — Susannah Spurgeon

Most of us manage the fateful things that happen in our lives the best we can, certainly not to a Stalin-like 20-year plan. — Jo Brand

Yet Jesus Christ says he is standing knocking at the door of our lives, waiting. Notice that he is standing at the door, not pushing it; speaking to us, not shouting. This is all the more remarkable when we reflect that the house is his in any case. He is the architect; he designed it. He is the builder; he made it. He is the landlord; he bought it with his own blood. So it is his by right of plan, construction, and purchase. We are only tenants in a house that does not belong to us. He could put his shoulder to the door; he prefers to put his hand on the knocker. He could command us to open to him; instead, he merely invites us to do so. He will not force an entry to anybody's life. He says (verse 18) 'I counsel you.' He could issue orders; he is content to give advice. This is the nature of his humility and the extent of the freedom he has given us. — John R.W. Stott

But fortunately for us and for all men, it has not been given unto us to judge, nor to execute, nor to measure out the days and the years of men. We may be most grateful that such matters belong to the Lord God our Father, who sees things past and things to come. And, we may be grateful for the assurance that there is plan and purpose in this world, and in our own lives. — Richard L. Evans

You don't have to look for trouble. It will find you. And when that happens"--Luna disappeared, but her voice continued--"keep up that great spirit and make a plan, because nine lives is just a state of mind. — Chris Kurtz

The key to a thrilling life of being sensitive to the voice of God and immediately obeying Him is the firm belief that God's plan for our lives is fundamentally better than anything we can dream up. — Rod Loy

Indeed, there is nothing like suffering to remind us how much we need God. What good news that His purpose and plan for our lives moves in a different direction from ours! — Tullian Tchividjian

We like to think that we plan what happens to us, but it is chance, surely, that lies behind so many of the great events of our lives
the meeting with the person with whom we are destined to spend the rest of our days, the receiving of a piece of advice whic influences our choice of career, the spotting of a particular house for sale; all of these may be put down to pur chance, and yet they govern how our lives work out and how happy
or unhappy
we were going to be. — Alexander McCall Smith

In the Bible we find everything we need to guide and energize our lives, to keep us on track so that we live out God's plan. — Elizabeth George

I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change. — Jim Rohn

All of this is not just a battle plan, it's a vacation too. For instance: you don't like the life you are living? Escape into another world by taking a lover. Men can't do this. When they take on a woman she becomes part of their life, but a woman gets to change lives with every man she sleeps with. In fact men are like magic flying carpets; you can visit different lands, become rich or poor without working, become religious by marrying a priest, become a cowboy by having an affair in Texas, join the political game by blowing the President, and tomorrow get high with a pop star. Society is a wonderful thing if you're a woman, you really can go anywhere so long as a man's first priority is to get laid, and that will never change. — Mary Woronov

God does have a specific plan for our lives, but it is not one that He expects us to figure out before we make a decision. — Kevin DeYoung

You mustn't get so upset about what you feel, Spud. No one's a hundred per cent consistent all the time. We might like to be. We can plan our lives along certain lines. But you know, there's no future in screwing down all the pressure valves and smashing in the gauge. You can do it for a bit and then something goes. Sometimes it gets that the only thing is just to say, 'That's what I'd like to feel twenty-four hours a day; but, the hell with it, this is how I feel now. — Mary Renault

The Passion of Christ was an experience which included in itself every experience except sin, of every member of the human race. If one may say this with reverence, the fourteen incidents of the Stations of the Cross show not only the suffering but the Psychology of Christ. Above all, they show, in detail, his way of transforming suffering by love. He shows us, step by step, how that plan of love can be carried out by men, women, and children today, both alone in the loneliness of their individual lives and together in communion with one another. — Caryll Houselander

It is necessary to prepare, to plan, so that we don't fritter away our lives. Without a goal, there can be no real success. The best definition of success I have ever found goes something like this: Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. Someone has said the trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never crossing the goal line. — Thomas S. Monson

It's really important, obviously, for people to realize that it is a very small percentage, only 1 percent of our total economy, of our total budget, and I think that's important for people to know. But I also know that Americans are very generous and that many, many Americans are proud that their taxpayer dollar has saved lives in Africa through the president's malaria initiative or through PEPFAR, the emergency relief plan for AIDS. — Laura Bush

We have a commitment to serve our Lord. We have an assurance that the cause is just and worthy. But, above all, we have a knowledge that God lives and is in His Heavens and that His Son Jesus Christ has laid out a plan for us which will bring us and our loved ones eternal life if we are faithful. That life will be a busy, purposeful life with accomplishments and joys and development. — Spencer W. Kimball

The great political, artistic, and religious project of modernity has been to find a meaning to life that is not rooted in some great cosmic plan. ...But we are still convinced our lives have meaning. As of 2016, humankind indeed manages to hold the stick at both ends. Not only do we possess far more power than ever before, but against all expectations. God's death did not lead to social collapse. Throughout history prophets and philosophers have argued that if humans stopped believing in a great cosmic plan all law and order would vanish. Yet today, those who pose the greatest threat to global law and order are precisely those people who continue to believe in God and his all-encompassing plans. — Yuval Noah Harari

I don't think women can have it all. I just don't think so ... My husband and I have been married for 34 years, and we have two daughters. And every day you have to make a decision about whether you are going to be a wife or a mother. In fact, many times during the day you have to make those decisions ... We co-opted our families to help us. We plan our lives meticulously so we can be decent parents. But if you ask our daughters, I'm not sure they will say that I've been a good mom. — Indra Nooyi

Natives dislike speed, as we dislike noise, it is to them, at the best, hard to bear. They are also on friendly terms with time, and the plan of beguiling or killing it does not come into their heads. In fact the more time you can give them, the happier they are, and if you commission a Kikuyu to hold your horse while you make a visit, you can see by his face that he hopes you will be a long, long time about it. He does not try to pass the time then, but sits down and lives. — Isak Dinesen

Child, the good Lord got plans for all of us that we don't know-and he always got His reasons. He want us to learn and rejoice in the good that come from His design.
God's plan ain't a free pass. Uh-uh. He give us moments to make choices, and we make them. We accountable for those choices. God's job ain't to make our lives easier, it's to make us better souls by the lessons he give us. I tell you now, I wouldn't change one choice I made since I met you. No matter what. — Susan Crandall

The more power they have over your emotions, the less likely you'll trust your own reality and the truth about the abuse you're enduring. Knowing the manipulative tactics and how they work to erode your sense of self can arm you with the knowledge of what you're facing and at the very least, develop a plan to retain control over your own life and away from toxic people. . . . Taking back our control and power . . . means seeking validating professional help for the abuse we've suffered, detaching from these people in our lives, learning more about the techniques of abusers, finding support networks, sharing our story to raise awareness, and finding appropriate healing modalities that can enable us to transcend and thrive after their abuse. — Shahida Arabi