Integrity

I must tell you that I have been trou­bled regard­ing the face of things in our coun­try and within the fam­ily of God. My major bat­tle has had to do with one word, one con­cept. My bat­tle has to do with integrity.

In our nation—and in the church—there has been a falling away, a break­down, and a com­pro­mise in integrity. Recent head­lines have taught us that the boom of the 1990s was built on a foun­da­tion devoid of integrity. But com­pro­mise isn’t lim­ited to CEOs who greed­ily sell out their employ­ees or to pork-happy politi­cians. All too often we find a moral lax­ity behind our pews and, even worse, behind the pulpit.

Let me define what I mean by integrity. Webster’s tells us integrity means “an unim­paired condition.”1 It means to be sound. The Hebrew word for integrity, tom, also means to be com­plete or solid.

So he shep­herded them accord­ing to the integrity [tom] of his heart,
And guided them with his skill­ful hands. (Psalm 78:72)

Integrity is com­plete­ness or sound­ness. You have integrity if you com­plete a job even when no one is look­ing. You have integrity if you keep your word even when no one checks up on you. You have integrity if you keep your promises. Integrity means the absence of duplic­ity and is the oppo­site of hypocrisy. If you are a per­son of integrity, you will do what you say. What you declare, you will do your best to be. Integrity also includes finan­cial account­abil­ity, per­sonal reli­a­bil­ity, and pri­vate purity. A per­son with integrity does not manip­u­late oth­ers. He or she is not prone to arro­gance or self-praise. Integrity even invites con­struc­tive and nec­es­sary crit­i­cism because it applauds account­abil­ity. It’s sound. It’s solid. It’s complete.

Integrity is rock-like. It won’t crack when it has to stand alone, and it won’t crum­ble though the pres­sure mounts. Integrity keeps one from fear­ing the white light of exam­i­na­tion or resist­ing the exact­ing demands of close scrutiny. It’s hon­esty at all costs.

The words of Louis Adamic seem fit­ting, “There is a cer­tain blend of courage, integrity, char­ac­ter and prin­ci­ple which has no sat­is­fac­tory dic­tio­nary name but has been called dif­fer­ent things at dif­fer­ent times in dif­fer­ent coun­tries. Our Amer­i­can name for it is ‘guts.’”2

I like that. Integrity is hav­ing the guts to tell the truth, even if it may hurt to do so. Integrity is hav­ing the guts to be hon­est, even though cheat­ing may bring about a bet­ter grade. Integrity is hav­ing the guts to quote sources rather than to plagiarize.

But there are some things integrity is not. It is not sin­less per­fec­tion. A per­son with integrity does not live a life absolutely free of sin. No one does. But one with integrity quickly acknowl­edges his fail­ures and doesn’t hide the wrong.

Now, in address­ing this cru­cial mark of char­ac­ter, I could come across as the “white knight,” but you know me bet­ter than that. I fail like every­one else. The sooner you remem­ber that, the bet­ter we’ll get along. But con­cern­ing the issue of integrity, I give you my word. You will know if I have failed or if Insight for Liv­ing has failed in some way. I will tell you. I will not lead you to believe some­thing is true if it is false. That is the least I can do as a min­is­ter of the Gospel.

Integrity is essen­tial in the church, in the mar­ket­place, and espe­cially in the home. When you walk in integrity, you leave it as a legacy for your chil­dren to fol­low (Proverbs 20:7). It’s what I call the father’s thumbprint. Blessed are you if you had a father with integrity and a mother with guts.

When you work with integrity, you honor the Lord. Regard­less of your pro­fes­sion, your char­ac­ter and con­duct are meth­ods of min­istry. Over 50 years ago, Elton True­blood wrote,

It is hard to think of any job in which the moral ele­ment is lack­ing. The skill of the den­tist is wholly irrel­e­vant if he is unprin­ci­pled and irre­spon­si­ble. There is lit­tle, in that case, to keep him from extract­ing teeth unnec­es­sar­ily, because the patient is usu­ally in a help­less sit­u­a­tion. It is easy to see the harm that can be done by an unprin­ci­pled lawyer. Indeed, such a man is far more dan­ger­ous if he is skilled than if he is not skilled.3

Do you put wire in walls? Do you repair cars? Do you work with num­bers? Do you sell clothes? Per­haps you prac­tice law or med­i­cine. The impor­tant thing is not what work you do, but whether you do your work with integrity. Per­haps you labor behind the scenes, and your only thanks is the inner sat­is­fac­tion of a job done right. Do you cheat on your exams? Are you cheat­ing on your mate? Some have the audac­ity to do such things and call them­selves Chris­tians. No won­der the world is confused!

You want to shock the world? Start here … demon­strat­ing the guts to do what’s right when no one is look­ing. It takes real guts to stand strong with integrity in a cul­ture weak­ened by hypocrisy. Start today.

1. Merriam-Webster’s Col­le­giate Dic­tio­nary, 10^th ed. See “integrity.”
2. Louis Adamic, A Study in Courage, 1944, as quoted by John Bartlett in Famil­iar Quo­ta­tions, 13^th ed. (Boston: Lit­tle, Brown & Co., n.d.), 981.
3. Elton True­blood, as quoted by Charles R. Swin­doll in Lead­er­ship: Influ­ence That Inspires (Waco, Tex.: Word Books, 1985), 35.

Taken from Charles R. Swin­doll, “A Bat­tle for Integrity,” Insights (March 2003): 1–2.

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