Pastor's Corner: An article about integrity

I overheard a conversation between a 3-year-old and her mother last week. The little girl had just been caught doing something at her swim class she was not supposed to be doing, and the mother asked, “Why did you do that? You know you were not supposed to do that!” The child replied, “Because my teacher wasn’t looking!”

The wise mother knew this was a great teaching moment and said, “But, you know that God is always watching you, and He can help you make good choices.” The 3-year-old earnestly said, without a hesitation, “No, God is not watching me. He can’t because He is in my heart.”

While some adults may not articulate their unfiltered thoughts so freely (except on Facebook), I believe there are many who think like this 3-year-old girl when she thought it was OK to disobey because no one was looking.

I believe verses from Scripture such as Proverbs 10:9, which says, “Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out” address this subject. Or, how about John 3:19 - 21? This passage states, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

A 3-year-old can’t tell you what integrity means, but sadly, there are many adults who also don’t understand the concept. When we act one way when we know we are being watched, but act differently when we believe no one can see, we display a lack of integrity and truthfulness. The passage in John displays a human predicament that all people must come to terms with: if we want to live in truth, we will allow ourselves to be exposed by the light. And, our actions will reflect the light within us. If we want to honor God, we don’t walk back into the darkness, or hide in the shadows. We stay in the light, where all can see us.

The 3-year-old couldn’t quite grasp how God could watch her from inside her heart, but as adult believers, we understand that once we make that decision to accept Jesus as The Savior, He is not only in our hearts, but He is within us to transform our hearts, which in turn transforms our actions. We can no longer state or believe that the things we do when we are alone don’t matter to anyone. They matter to the one who shed His blood to save us from those things.

Pastor Wynne Schott

Co-pastor, Cheboygan Church of the Nazarene