Posts Tagged: the cost of integrity

“Being Forgiven, Feeling Forgiven, and Other Considerations”

On July 17, 2024 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

I have not always lived my life well. In fact, I have done things that have greatly harmed others and myself. These harms are in the distant past now, but they often feel horribly contemporary to me. No doubt, they also feel horribly contemporary to others as well. My children in particular are deeply hurt by my past behavior, even when it did not directly impact them. They will quite likely never forgive.

Over coffee, I was talking about my doubts about my forgivable-ness to a friend of mine this morning. We love one another enough to speak truth into one another. Of course, truth initially hurts, as all truly good things do. My friend said, “I think your children will never forgive you. That may be part of why you don’t believe that God can forgive you.” I didn’t want to hear that, but I know my friend is right.

But then, my friend added two more wisdoms.

“It may be that the consequences of your children’s lack of forgiveness and their rejection of you help you to avoid going back to your old behavior.”

The second wisdom that my friend gave me was this: “There is forgiveness and then there is the feeling of being forgiven. You may not feel forgiven until Heaven.”

And here is my takeaway from a profoundly uncomfortable and healing conversation: If my children’s rejection and my feeling of being unforgiven helps me to avoid lapsing back into old patterns, I am well-contented with such rejection and such feelings. The price of integrity is high, but integrity—at any price—is a bargain. Or, better yet, integrity is a great investment.

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“Of Mistakes and Integrity: Jeff”

On October 7, 2021 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you.” (Proverbs 25:21, English Standard Version)

As a recovering addict, I use daily affirmations in order to keep myself more or less on track. My affirmation yesterday was as follows:

“Today, by God’s grace, I am expecting to make mistakes, and expecting others to make mistakes too. Neither my mistakes nor those of others define who we are in God’s eyes.”

Little did I know how that affirmation would play out during the day!

In the afternoon, my wife and I heard a strange rattling sound outside. The trash collectors and recycling team had already come and gone, so we weren’t sure what had happened. A couple of minutes later, the answer rang our doorbell. And the answer had a name: Jeff.

It seems that Jeff had knocked over our mailbox. That happened a few years ago, and the driver drove on. I had to replace the mailbox at my own expense. In view of how narrow the road is and how close to the road the mailbox is, the surprising thing is that the mailbox has only been hit twice in the seventeen plus years that we’ve lived here.

Mistakes happen. Mine, yours, everybody’s. Most of the time, we just keep going. Jeff didn’t. Why? Because that was the way his dad had raised him.

Integrity doesn’t mean not making mistakes. Integrity means having the courage to admit them and, as best you can, making things right. In this case, “Jeff” was another name for integrity.

Eighteen years ago, I came clean with people I had harmed with my addiction. It was and is a costly process. There are people whom I love who no longer speak to me. There are people who believe that I have not come clean about everything. That is an understandable belief. It is also wrong.

But here is the conclusion I’ve come to: Integrity—at any price—is a bargain. The opposite of integrity (or wholeness) is scatteredness. And who wants to be scattered and blowing in the wind? We need more Jeffs in the world. We need to make sure we are being more like Jeff.

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