God basically says, "Make plans, but be ready to change them."

Where in the world does he get that, eh? Well, let's see.

James 4:13-15

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain"; whereas you do not know about tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that." (RSV)

My world sometimes seems a cluttered place, one with a million things unresolved and most of them apparently insurmountable, or at the least discouraging. But then I start, one by one, attacking those things in my life, slicing through the pile of books by my bed, the stack of papers on my desk, my list of things to do.

And I feel better. The inadequacy and discouragement melts in the glow of accomplishment, progress. To sit and feel bad about the road ahead, this just perpetuates a negative situation. But to run up that road with energy and hope, that'll just plain kick the bad attitude.

Little by little, inch by inch.
By the yard it's hard,
But an inch, what a cinch
Never look up the stairs, just step up the steps.
Little by little, inch by inch.

-Ron (& Shelley?) Hamilton (I'm guessing)