Re-visiting the Integrity Question [10'TU]

This "ten minute Tuesday" thing is constraining, for obvious reasons. Last week I had to say "see you next week" because I couldn't finish the thought in 10 minutes.

And we are dealing with integrity which means something like "if your words and action do not hold together then you lack integrity."

This is tough.

Ann Landers said somewhere, "Put a log chain on your tongue and if you say you will do something be absolutely sure you do it." She was speaking to this matter of integrity.

I closed last week with suggesting we engage with the Living God in this matter, based on a passing reference in Psalm 41: "You [God] uphold me in my integrity." (v.12) At base this seems to mean we are not alone in our integrity: we need others, most fundamentally, we need God. Is our role prior? That is, do we make earnest to "say as we do and do as we say" and then God will be there with us? Or is God prior?

Again, seems to me, "Yes."

But I'll not be coy if I can help it, striving in this very thing to have integrity, to speak that which is consistent with what I believe and say. I think the verse hints at the idea we can never be wholly whole without God, and He is the one who makes it possible.

Please bear a quick explanation before time is out. Integrity means integrated, which means it all holds together. It is more than being sure the jots and tittles align with the jots and tittles. It is the being of a person resigned to God, at peace with the Truth whatever it is.

The person of integrity relies on God to make him whole and rests in the Living God as the only one who can re-constitute him as such. This is the restoring of the image, without which our integrity is wholly up to us. And that is a losing proposition on all fronts.