An insightful and well written article on an important concern for personal development.
Conviction
by Brian TomeDo you ever turn on the television at an unusual time for you and see a show that you haven't seen for years and years, something like Happy Days? And the episode that you see that day is an episode that you realize that you still think about? At that moment, aren't you astounded by how much mind space that meaningless show has taken up in your mind?
When Happy Days or Laverne & Shirley takes up mind space, it is wasted. I don't see what value is added to my life in remembering when Fonzie was perplexed dealing with his need to beat up Richie in order to save face. Remember what happened? Richie was in the bathroom with Fonzie, and the Fonze was so excited when someone opened the door and smacked Richie in the face. That way everyone assumed Fonzie punched him. How about when Lenny & Squigy had a towel that stood straight up? These episodes don't provide any motivation for the daily grind.
For me this phenomena takes place with various things I've heard people say. In seminary there was a professor who was asked by a student if there could ever be such a thing as a just war. He said, "Is there anything you would die for?" The student said, "Yes." Then he said, "If it is worth dying for, it is worth killing for." To this day, I'm not sure that I totally follow his logic or reasoning. But those are words that continue to bounce around in my brain. Those words have passed through my mind on the average of once a week over the past nine years or so. Preparing for this message was like revisiting that episode that has been taking up mind space.
Every time I think about that I ask myself what I would die for. Have you ever asked yourself what you would take a bullet for? If there are things you would take bullets for, you have no problem with the first aspect of integrity: Conviction. People who have integrity have a set of values that they are passionate about. Having convictions is the starting point of integrity.
Before we talk about convictions I want to set the stage by defining what integrity is. There is a lot of talk about integrity these days. Everyone thinks they have integrity, at least compared to the next person. At least that's what we'll be hearing in the next presidential elections. In order to really have integrity, not just claim we have integrity, we need to understand what it is.
1) Integrity is Totality
The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and contains the word that we translate as integrity. I couldn't have picked a better word for the word integrity. Whoever invented the Hebrew language was very insightful, because the word for integrity is literally "tome." That shouldn't be surprising to any of you. I always thought my last name meant a collection of books, but this makes much more sense. It is true to life. (As you'll see in a little bit, I wish this statement were more accurate.)
In the Old Testament book of I Kings there are instructions as to how to build the Jewish Temple. The state of completion of that edifice is the word tracing back to "tom." A building that is complete is one of integrity. Our mission in this church is to "walk with the seeker in becoming complete followers of Christ." That doesn't mean that we all want to believe the same things in every detail of life, though belief is a precursor to life change. Thinking right doesn't mean anything if it doesn't lead to living right.
Our church is seeking to work with people at different spiritual developmental stages in order to get us all to a place of completion, wholeness or integrity, where the totality of our lives is the way God wants it to be.
Chronicles 16:9
The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. (NIV)
Though God is willing and able to work with every life, those lives that are moving toward total full-out commitment generally receive the most strength from God. Actually, I wish the epistemology of my last name actually had more in common with my life. The truth is that I like to be liked, and liking to be liked is pressure to bend to what others believe and do, and that isn't always right. You link my like to be liked with the personality of an extrovert, and I have a lot of people that I'm trying to please. The more people you try to please the harder it is to consistently and totally follow through on your convictions.
I'm tempted to act like many politicians. We all know of politicians who flip flop on issues. Conservatives become liberals and vice-versa. These people have every right to change their views. New information can be presented to change our minds; that can be a sign of growth. But we shouldn't change our views just to make them more palatable to other people.
We do this, though, don't we? We teach our kids to do things that we don't do. And we discipline them for things we do. We expect our children to be innocent and well behaved, yet we don't apply the same standards to our own conduct.
- We tell them not to lie, yet we fudge figures or "position" the facts.
- We reprimand them for using bad language, yet we are pretty uninhibited when we are doing beers.
- We tell them to share, but if someone takes that parking space at HQ a split second before we do, we act like an immature kindergartner who has been drinking red juice.
We frequently change sides or at least change our verbiage on issues because we aren't people of integrity. Instead of having a conviction that says, "This is what is right, and this is where I stand," we compartmentalize. We think, "I'll act this way with you and that way with them, and when I'm over there, this will be my modus operandi..."
Maybe I'm a masochist, but the older I get the more things that I add to that list of things I would take a bullet for. That is because the older I get the more I see how all of life is interrelated.
The idea of integrity in the Bible means wholeness. It means that the totality of your life is the same. You are the same when you go to church; you are the same when you are at work; you are the same if you go out for drinks; you are the same when you determine what you are going to be entertained by. You are a whole person, not a bunch of fragmented pieces that behave differently depending on the compartment. Conviction is where we get the energy to connect the dots and become a person of wholeness and integrity. Leadership guru Warren Bennis says,
Effective leaders ... have a strong sense of purpose, a passion, a conviction for wanting to do something important.
Warren Bennis
The best long-term leaders are not those who live a double life. They are those who have an overriding God-honoring set of convictions that guides them every day, regardless of the terrain. You can be a short-term leader without integrity but not an effective leader over the long haul.
2) Integrity is Tenacity
Integrity is like oxygen. The higher you go the less of it there is and the more you need. At the same time, the deeper you go or the lower you go, the more pressure there is to come apart. In the navy, before a submarine submerges, the crew checks to see if the vessel's hatches are battened down. When the first mate receives the confirmation from the rest of the crew that their station is secure, the captain will get the report: "This is a ship of integrity." What that means is that the ship is watertight.
It quickly becomes obvious when a hatch is not shut. It is obvious that the vessel isn't in a state of integrity. But there is far more work involved in ensuring that the ship will remain a vessel of integrity when the pressure is on. From time to time, every seam, every weld, every rivet needs to be inspected. Because if it is not a totally strong ship, one leak can wreak major havoc and cause serious damage.
Some say that there is an apparent honesty void at higher levels of organizational structures, that the higher you go the less oxygen there is. A similar thing can be said when the pressures of life start to push you down. The lower you go the more pressure you feel and the greater the likelihood there is that you will spring a leak.
Best-selling author and activist Rita Mae Brown says,
People are like tea bags; you never know how strong they'll be until they're in hot water. In times of trouble, you not only discover what you truly believe but whether or not you can act on your beliefs.
Rita Mae Brown
We think that people of integrity never do anything really really bad like run away on their wife and kids. In reality the break of integrity doesn't happen then; it happens long before then, when people don't tend to the small cracks and stress fractures. When pressures start to mount, whether they be financial worries, issues with boredom, pressure from peers or something else, they can explode and cause people to do things that aren't right. Even when things seem fine on the surface, there are sometimes problems beneath the waterline that no one else can see.
- The person who runs away on their spouse had stuff going on beneath the water line. The paint looked good, but barnacles were eating at the hull.
- In the next few days, you'll be doing your taxes, and only you will know what is completely accurate. Are you demanding that your kids be totally honest?
- You have been having beneath-the-waterline conversations about someone who isn't present and doesn't know what you are saying. Is it accurate? Does it match what you have told that person? Would you say it if he or she were in the room?
A teacher in grade school once made an offhand comment that said, "You know when you are mature when you act the same no matter who you are with." I think about that a lot. So I combine that statement with the statement from my seminary professor, and I'm looking to kill whomever I'm with. Kidding. Teachers can be powerful change agents. Let's see what some students once said to Jesus, the greatest teacher of all time.
Matthew 22:16
They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. (NIV)
I don't think Jesus received nearly enough compliments. Generally people didn't go out of their way to encourage Him. But here is one of the biggest compliments He ever received. At least if someone were to say this to me, I would take it that way. They say, "You aren't swayed by the opinions of others." This doesn't mean that Jesus is a stubborn hardhead. It means that when He knows something is right He executes against it; it doesn't matter who He is with. He was the same person in every situation and eventually even died for the sake of truth. These guys said to Him, "When we go beneath the water, you are the same person. You are a man of integrity who has the totality of your life headed in the same direction - the right direction."
Our church is engineered to provide a place for those of you who aren't Christians to examine the claims of Christianity and to seek whether or not God is worth devoting your life to. We try to speak your language in our weekend services, recommend reading materials, put on seminars, host seeker small groups and provide other learning opportunities. We know that people look for watertight arguments and rationale for why Jesus is the only way to truly experience an eternal relationship with God.
There are some compelling arguments and data within the Bible that need to be examined closely. But the Bible's purpose is not to provide us with watertight arguments and rationale; it was written to give us a watertight person: Jesus Christ. No matter where He was, no matter what He did, He consistently did the right, loving and courageous thing
As much as we don't like some things that the Bible and Jesus teach, you don't hear about people who have disrespect for the person of Jesus. He was historically a watertight person of integrity. When Jesus asked people to come to Him, the other things took care of themselves.
The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
I have three statements I want to make that tie integrity and conviction together. I'm leaving a blank not for you to fill in the one word I'm going to give you but rather as an exercise for you to fulfill. Filling in any God-honoring value and conviction will accurately complete the statement.
I have a conviction that _________ will alter my quality of life
Or as an example, I have a conviction that being selfless with my spouse will alter the quality of my life. I have a conviction that God has established rules in terms of how this life is to be lived; how wholly committed I am to those principles will have a direct reflection on the quality of my life.
Proverbs 11:3
The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity. (NIV)
Many lives are destroyed by duplicity and compartmentalization, lives which don't have lines drawn in the sand along with a sign that says, "I'm not going there!"
I have a Conviction that _________ will dictate the quality of my faith.
If you are a selfish person and your selfishness is coming into your home, I know that it directly affects your ability to connect with God. Show me a person who isn't honoring and serving their spouse and I'll show you a person outside of God's favor.
Psalm 25:21
May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you. (NIV)
Conviction that _________ will set the pace for generations after me.
I was speaking with Cyndi King, our Director of Children's and Family Ministries, recently; she was telling me of breaking research that indicates that the strength or power base of one's parenting begins even before people are married. In those years, their integrity and character are forged; opinions of what is right and wrong are drafted, and parenting is simply the natural expression of that parent's life up to that point.
If your parents drummed into your head that money was supreme, guess how long they have been acting that way? Long before you were born. My parents are here this weekend. They set the pace in some areas that prepared me to set the pace for my kids. I can remember going to functions with my Dad; when a friend at the front of the line waved me up, he wouldn't let me go. Cutting in line wasn't acceptable. I still can't cut in line to this day.
1 Kings 9:4-5
As for you, if you walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever...(NIV)
Whether or not you are a person of integrity right now directly affects the likelihood of your kids becoming people of integrity.
3) Integrity is Tempting
The reason I say that integrity is tempting is because we don't really want it. It is too much work. It is too hard. Following through on convictions takes too much effort. There is a price to pay that is high enough to overcome the temptation. As I shared a couple weeks ago, I've been tempted to buy a new car. The only reason I haven't yet is that I haven't been willing to pay the price.
You aren't a person of integrity and you don't have any guiding principles until they start costing you and you willingly pay. I'm not as together as you may think I am. In fact, I have an outage in my life. I'm not a person of integrity when it comes to... recycling. I don't have a deep enough conviction about recycling to go down the steps to the basement at 11:30 at night. I sometimes put bottles in the garbage under the sink. I'm not wholly committed to it. I'm making light of something that many of you don't think is funny at all. Why? Because you are committed to paying the price. It doesn't matter if you are in Yellowstone National Park, at work, at home or at Mt. Rumpke. That Mt. Dew bottle isn't going to go in the garbage.
We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
I've had a relationship with the watertight person of Jesus for almost 18 years. As best as I've been able, I've made Him and His values my single overriding objective. Some friends of mine, who became Christians at the same time I did, don't even think of Jesus any more. Being in full-time ministry for 11 years I've grown accustomed to seeing people fade away. Even in this only 3-year-old church, there are people who have just walked away from God. He doesn't play any role in their lives anymore.
There are a number of different reasons for this. You may be one of those people in the making. Let me give you just one reason why it may happen to you: You never intended to have your whole life come under God's direction. You never had the kind of conviction that said, "All of my life. All of it in totality. I don't know if I fully understand what 'all of it' means, but as I continue to grow in my relationship with Jesus, as I become aware of what He wants me to do, I'm up for it." You are tempted to think like that. You may make comments in public that tempt others to think that you think like that, but deep down under the water you know you don't.
We don't want an integrated life or a life of integrity. We want some perks that come from integrity. The last time I mentioned anything about integrity in a message, a woman came up to me after the service and said, "I want to be a person of integrity." Then she paused and said, "Actually, what I want is for people to think I'm a person of integrity." In that moment she came a step closer to her originally stated goal, because she realized that her statement wasn't whole. There was more to it than met the ear.
We aren't talking about being a moralist in this series. That isn't what God-honoring integrity is about. We are talking about drawing on a relationship with Christ that infiltrates every nook and cranny of your life including that which is beneath the surface. I encourage you to start paying the price that it takes to become a person of integrity. It will be the best investment you'll ever make.
Source: http://realplace.org/notesonline/1999/041199.html
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