Tony Evans - God Is Up to Something Great: Turning Your Yesterdays into Better Tomorrows

G OD I S U P TO S OMETHING G REAT
P UBLISHED BY M ULTNOMAH B OOKS
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Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible 1960, 1977, 1995, 1997 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Copyright 2002 by Tony Evans

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

M ULTNOMAH and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

The Library of Congress cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Evans, Anthony T.
God is up to something great / by Tony Evans.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-56473-3
1. Christian lifeBiblical teaching. 2. Paul, the Apostle, Saint. 3. Peter, the Apostle, Saint. 4. Joseph (Son of Jacob) I. Title.
BS680.C47 E93 2002
248.4dc21

2002009093

v3.1

Dedication

This book is dedicated to that special person
who needs the days ahead to be better
than the days gone by.

A FEW YEARS AGO, the Soviet submarine Kursk went down in the Barents Sea. When diving crews reached the sunken submarine, they heard tapped SOS signals coming from inside the sub. The crew was wondering, Is there any hope?

Like those sailors, many people today feel trapped in impossible situations. They feel like banging against their circumstances and wondering the same thing: Is there any hope?

Do you ever feel that way, wondering how your circumstances could possibly be worked out, how your life could come to mean something?

Well, let me tell you what I know is true: God is up to something great.

Its true. Hes up to something great in every persons life. Do you believe that? Do you feel that God is up to something great in your life? That His plans and purposes for you are about more than just trudging through the days, wondering to yourself, Is there really any hope? Do I have a purpose?

This book is for people who feel that they are fresh out of hope. Its for people whove made big mistakes, whove seen every ray of sunshine turn into clouds of rain. Its for people with broken dreams and lingering disappointmentspeople whose hope and sense of purpose, despite their best efforts, have been dashed to the ground. Its even for people whove known success but still have holes in their hearts.

And not all hope-deprived people are poor either. If you have money, maybe youre spending it on psychologists, trying to find hope within yourself. Trying by mental manipulation and self-analysis to drive out anger, fear, and negativity, as though by emptying yourself of bad you might automatically be filled with good.

But hope is not the absence of despair. Its the presence of something far greater, something only God can give. Hope is not passive; its the most active force in the world because it is derived from the most powerful Being of all: Hope comes from God. Its real. And its never more than a moment away. And with hope comes purpose. Thats the message of this bookthrough all the circumstances in your life, God is up to something great.

So lets get started

I doubt Clint Eastwood ever realized that a character he played would introduce a phrase into the English language that would still be used decades later. But he did so just the same, through a movie he was in in the 1960s. I didnt see The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly when it first hit the silver screen, but I saw it on video years later. By that time the title had given our culture an expression that hasnt gone away for nearly forty years now.

Well, the title of the movie made me think of a guy I knew whod just graduated from medical school. He had been given a full scholarship, which paid all his bills and let him study twenty-four hours a day. By my reckoning, that was good because it was something positive and beneficial that moved him forward in life.

I knew another guy whod been given a full scholarship to a different kind of school, to study engineering. But instead of studying and learning, he spent his time drinking beer and goofing off. He flunked out. That was bad because he brought disaster on himself.

I knew a third fellow whod planned to be a surgeon. But one day a lawn mower he was using blew up and burned his hands so badly that he lost several fingers. And that was ugly because his dream died through something that wasnt his fault.

My question is this: How often have you used the terms good, bad, and ugly to characterize whats happened in your life? All of us go through good, bad, and just plain ugly times at one point or another.

But, friend, thats only half the storybecause God is up to something great through all of it.

Through His magnificent grace, God can take the good, the bad, and the ugly experiences in your life and use them to make you unbelievably better at what Hes created you for, whatever that might be! And thats what is so amazing about GodHe can take all those good, bad, and ugly experiences and use them for your calling. Thats good news, right?

In Gods economy, all is redeemed and nothing is ever lost. He can take the good things that we remember most fondly, the bad things we might like to forget, and the ugly things that have shaped us into people we didnt start out to be and use all of them to facilitate His individual purpose for each and every one of us.

Including you.