Call yourself a Christian?

If so, we need to refuse to allow the world to speak louder than us. And when our words won’t do it, our walk will. Our peers may not always believe what we say about faith, but it’s our responsibility to inspire them to believe by how we act in our faith. 

Example always trumps the verbal. 

You see, it’s easy to recite and spew out the tenets of Christianity, but success comes by living it out for others to see. Years and years of education, Bible study, and learning theology can be superseded by minutes of humility, honesty, and mercy. You can’t get a degree in kingdom thinking. No. This mindset is learned through life’s deep experiences—when the going gets tough. 

It must be cultivated to be manifested, and often it takes suffering to bring success to the surface.

And that is why God may trust you with trouble: it is His way to show off His grace and glory through the trouble, much like Job in the Old Testament.

Job wasn’t sinless, just blameless. He walked in his integrity, and that was his security. You see, he was secure, not from the devil's external attacks that he suffered, but he was secure by his own internal resilience and reliance on God that allowed for him to suffer successfully through the attacks.

Thus, our security is linked to our integrity.

Yes, trouble touched him, but the trouble did not take him. Job took the trouble and turned it into triumph by his response to the trouble, not by what he knew intellectually, but how he responded to it faithfully.

This is abundantly clear in Job’s words, “My ears had heard of You, but now my eyes have seen You” (Job 42:5). It was through Job’s adversity that He was able to get a closer more intimate glimpse of the character of God and His faithfulness through our trials.

However, don’t be fooled if you have found yourself with no problems because the absence of trouble doesn’t always mean blessing.  In fact, the absence of trouble could mean that you are not worthy of the testing. 

Keep in mind that the devil doesn’t mess with those who pose no spiritual threat.  Nor does God test our present unless He’s preparing us for something bigger in the future.

The truth of the matter is: No one is actively looking for trouble, but if it comes our way, the ultimate goal should be to magnify God through the trouble; because the world is watching and the Christian’s example needs to be the steady teaching that should never be lost by a multitude of words and meaningless platitudes that don’t line up with our living example.

ED. NOTE: Matthew Maher is a former professional athlete and author of the newly released book U MAY B THE ONLY BIBLE SOMEBODY READS: R U LEGIBLE? His “Decisions Determine Destiny” assemblies are funded by State Farm and service youth in the tristate area. He is the president of Soldiers for Faith Ministries and also the director of Student Ministries at Coastal Christian Ocean City. He served four years and seven months in N.J. State prison and was released August 2014. You can learn more at www.themattmaherstory.com. Follow him on Twitter @mattmaherstory and Instagram @matthewmaher7.