"The integrity of the upright will guide them, but the perversity of the unfaithful will destroy them."
Have you tried to define integrity? I have a placard I received
as a gift that says “Integrity is what you do when no one else is watching.”
Integrity, I think to most of us, means to do the right thing. I love Webster’s
definition:
1: firm adherence to a
code of especially moral or artistic values: incorruptibility
2: an unimpaired condition:
soundness
3: the quality or
state of being complete or undivided: completeness
While it is true that there is a “moral code” we can conduct
ourselves by, this would, as Christians, make us no different than a self-help
book club, Boy Scout troop, or other religion.
I think that for Christians, numbers 2 and 3 apply more. Let’s
take these in context with our identity in Christ and Him abiding in us.
An unimpaired condition
or soundness. To be unimpaired means to be completely free to be as you
were designed to be. A car is driving down the road and faces a speed bump.
What happens? The car slows down. A car is driving down the road and faces a
brick wall. What happens? A crash test dummy commercial. Which of these two
cars were impaired? Both were. By definition each car was impaired because
something was in its way and caused it to adjust what it was doing. This is
key. In our lives, living with integrity is less about trying harder and more
about giving up things that adjust our God given course.
Trying harder won’t make us honest. If you are a new
creation in Christ then you are honest. Period. The old man is dead. The
problem comes when we do not live out our New Life honestly. When we allow
something to adjust who we are and what we are doing, then we have stopped
living with integrity. We have allowed something else to define who we are.
The quality or state
of being complete or undivided: completeness. I had a family member who
once struggled with alcoholism, among other things in his life. Sitting on the
couch with this very talented and gifted man who had thrown his life away, he
said something to me that was so profound that I knew he hadn’t fully grasped it yet. “KC”,
he said “We all have a God hole. There is just this huge hole inside of us that
nothing else can fill. It’s like in kindergarten when the kids have to put the
round peg into the round hole. Nothing else will fit in our God hole other than
God. We try to fill it with other things and we are just incomplete.” It was, I
believe, a confession of sorts about his own life.
If a building is to maintain its integrity, then every bit
of the design structure must be in place. Every pillar or brick or cement
block. Whether it is a sky scraper or an outhouse, for a building to maintain
its integrity it must be true to its original design. I believe that integrity,
as far as you and I are concerned, is about maintaining our proper, God given
design. Our God hole must be full. You cannot walk in integrity if you are not
true to your original purpose, which is to love and be loved by God. Take out
Christ who is the “Chief Cornerstone” and the whole thing just falls apart.
As a leader, I must do everything I can to make sure that I
live a life that is unimpaired by things that would distract from God and to
stay true to my original design. A man or woman of integrity has X-ray vision.
They can see their own heart, and what God has put in there, and they stay true to
that image.
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