What is integrity?
In the dictionary, the word integrity is defined as "a firm adherence to a code of moral values".
My question is do we actually do this?
A quote I once heard was "Integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching!"
We live in a world where we see people fail to act with integrity every day.
Politicians lie and cheat, sports stars have affairs and even the leaders of our own churches get caught doing things that they should not.
We see these things and are disgusted by the people involved in them, we judge and condemn those who are caught, but how far away from doing these things are we?
I think that a lack of integrity starts with the small things and builds up.
No politician probably started with the intent of falsely claiming thousands of pounds of expenses; it would have been one small step at a time.
Recently I discussed this in a Christian men's group, (we meet weekly for an informal time of conversation and some bible study).
We all had very different jobs but all had issues about how we should act, there are always temptations to let something go, to turn a blind eye, to not do something properly, to take home a paperclip or something similar!
Every day we are tempted in a multitude of different ways to not act with integrity.
These temptations are often over very small things but can then lead to something greater if we succumb.
And before we know it we are as bad as those we choose to condemn.
If we do lose our integrity then what we believe or preach loses value in other people's eyes.
As Christian we cannot always expect others to agree with us but if we show integrity then perhaps we can earn their respect
Madonna says this about her father "My father was very strong. I don't agree with a lot of the ways he brought me up.
"I don't agree with a lot of his values, but he did have a lot of integrity, and if he told us not to do something, he didn't do it either."
If we read the gospels we see how little Jesus thought of religious hypocrites.
We must be careful not to end up like them or no-one will believe our message!
We all want to change the world and make it a better place, we all want people to see the rightness of what we believe in, but we often find little success in this, in the end perhaps all we can do is to start with ourselves and act with as much integrity as possible.
Confucius once said: "To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right."
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Tuesday 14 February 2012
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