Integrity
Life is full of struggles. Most of the major ones are not the ones visible to everyone but those that we wrestle with internally. I heard a definition once of the word integrity: Our response in thought or action to our own thoughts or the actions of others. Let that sink in for a moment. . .
In the Bible, Proverbs 23:7 says it this way: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”. Now let that sink in. Over the past months I have wrestled with these things. Through deeply personal and also highly visible circumstances I have found my own integrity called into question and my thoughts and actions put on “trial”, not in the literal courtroom but in the court of popular opinion.
I have also put myself on “trial” searching my heart for intent, desires and thoughts.
I did not like what I discovered.
Unfortunately in life we cannot always predict what we will do in certain circumstances. We like to think what we would do, and of course, is always to act nobly and faithful. Yet I have found over the years that I fall short of that time and time again. Yes, sometimes I do respond rightly but sometimes I dont. I have found that the longer the struggle, the more difficult it is to always respond correctly, to keep the thoughts from going ary and to pursue the righteus path.
So the obvious solution would be to avoid long struggles, but I find that is an impossibility. Sometimes the greatest victories or losses comes from long and deep struggles. While in college I was given a book to read by my leadership professor, “As A Man Thinketh”. In the book the author says “Circumstance does not make the man, it reveals him to himself.” As I have looked at what my present circumstances have revealed to me, I do not like the revelation.
The Bible does a good job in summing it up in the book of Romans, chapter 3 verse 10: “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one” and in verse 23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. If the Bible is true, then I am not alone in this struggle. We all are struggling today or have struggled recently.
My thoughts for you today is that as you go through these struggles that you do not walk through them alone. Find a good friend – remember they struggle just as much as you. Consider what you focus your thoughts on. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.
