Mulligan: Playing with integrity

If you always tell the truth, you don't have to remember what you said. 

 

Let’s get right to the heart of today’s examination. Do we have integrity in our lives? Some mistake integrity as another word for being honest. While honesty is a part of the equation; integrity has to do with wholeness. It has to do with being complete.

 

 

If we have a church life and a secular life, we are not complete. If we are the same authentic person—even with our flaws—wherever we are, then we approach this completeness. If we have integrity, we can speak the truth in love and hear the truth in love. 

Sometimes wanting to be right, or the best, or appear to be right or the best gets in the way of living a true—an authentic life. 

Sometimes, winter rules permit you to better you lie. That means if your ball is in a muddy part of the fairway, you could move it to an adjacent grassy area. Two golfers were playing using winter rules. As they walked down the fairway, one said to another, “What did you get on that last hole?”

“A four,” replied his partner.

As they approached the first ball, the first golfer said, “You know that you can better your lie.”

He replied, “Well then, I’ll take a three.”

 

Too often, we seem to doctor our scorecard instead of healing our lives. Here is the good news in golf analogy. God gives us a Mulligan. We know him as Jesus Christ. We mess up and He makes it right.

We do need to come first to the truth in our lives—where we have strayed—and admit it to ourselves and to others and to Jesus. Here is one place where the world lives in stark contrast to how we must live to be authentic.

The world says you can spin doctor this into something else. You can twist it just enough that you might be able to shed the blame, or better yet, pass it completely to your boss, your church, or your government. 

To be authentic, to live with integrity is to say, “Yes, I did that that. I sure missed the mark. Please forgive me. Will you help me try again?”

Some people will say “ouch!” or “you are absolutely crazy. Nobody owns up to everything they did, asks forgiveness when they wrong someone, and they sure don’t look to ask for help.”

Yes, they do. People who are complete realize how incomplete they really are. Only by living in truth can we truly live. Only when we seek the forgiveness that we find in the Truth, do we become complete—and here’s a tough word to swallow: perfect. Yes, to be complete is to be perfect. Jesus makes us perfect!

If we are living an authentic life, we are also living a perfect life. It is still a life where we fall short, make mistakes, and yes some of them may be big ones; but it is a complete, a perfect life when we respond to the grace of God by letting Jesus complete us.

Now we are getting down to business. Now we are getting to something tangible. Now this One Month to Live is starting to come together. In my last days, I doubt that I will be concerned about concealing the fact that I kicked the cat, spit in the grits, or left the seat up. It happened, I’m sorry, I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I just messed up. Please forgive me. I have too much living to do to try and carry any ridiculous burdens around with me. We might say something like:

“I’m not perfect in the eyes of the world!”

“I am perfect in the arms of Jesus!”

“I can live with that.”

 

Today, I am putting all of the make it count and make it last for life moments together.

1.       In what area(s) of your life are you most likely to cut corners or set aside your values? (Relational, spiritual, financial? Others?)

2.       What part of your life is the most challenging to integrate with others?

3.       When is it hard to keep your word?

4.       In which relationships or situations are you most likely to find yourself in a bad lie?

5.       If you only had one month to live, who would you need to tell the truth to today?

6.       Take a blank sheet of paper and draw a big circle on it. Now divide it into eight pieces (like a pizza or a pie). Label these with major areas of you life, e.g. family, work, hobbies, marriage, finances, church, etc.). If you find you need more than eight areas, please add them.

7.       Are you living your values in each of these?

8.       Now draw a smaller circle in the middle of the pie and write God in the smaller circle. God doesn’t want a piece of your life. He wants all of it. He wants to be your first consideration in all you do. Spend some time in personal examination. Is there an area that you try to do the impossible—to hide something from God?

9.       How do you rate yourself on the integrity meter?

10.   Are you the same person in each of these areas?

 

Go to the Day 21 provocations.