AN ISSUE WORTH VOTING FOR!
Today’s Message of Encouragement from
(Ron Bainbridge Editor) Discovering A BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES
(Stories of Real People, Real Events, Real Places)
They provide Spiritual FOOD FOR THOUGHT
To HELP People Find HOPE,
Along with the Meaning and Purpose
For A BETTER LIFE
(John 10:10; 14:6)
AN ISSUE WORTH VOTING FOR!
Friends, on Election Day, May 21st, 2022, Australians will make some very important decisions! They will be decisions that will determine which political party will lead our Nation for the next four years.
Who shall we vote for? Who shall we elect to be our next Prime Minister? At present, each of the political parties is competing for our vote. Many promises and public proclamations are being made. However, beyond all these promises and proclamations, what are the most important issues in a political campaign?
Personally, I want to cast my vote for the integrity issue, because integrity is not established by public proclamations. It is worn on the heart, not on the sleeve.
Friend, I think it would be true to say that the past years have been bad years for integrity. And many people are expressing the opinion these days that integrity --- among our leaders in government, business, and religion --- has seldom been in shorter supply.
Sadly, we have been shocked again and again to discover that men and women, in whom we have placed our trust, our money, and indeed our lives, have been proved unworthy of our trust.
The ancient Greeks had their story of Diogenes, who carried his lantern in the middle of the day in his search for an honest man. Our newspaper headlines may suggest that Diogenes would feel very much at home in Australia today. But why is integrity such a scarce commodity in our society? How can we become men and women of integrity?
One editor of a major business magazine has written that the only sign we seem to be looking for direction is the dollar sign: “Cheat on your taxes, just don’t get caught. Cheat on your wife, just don’t get STD!” Our high-tech society, he writes, has given us everything --- “everything but a conscience!”
However, friend, integrity involves more than just having the right set of values. It includes having the strength of will to live with those values. Sometimes our problem is in knowing what to do in each situation. More often our struggle is in doing what we know we should do. It is not simply a question of knowledge it is equally a question of courage and determination.
This is the essence of integrity: speaking out and taking risks. Becoming a person of integrity calls on us to be clear about our beliefs, to decide who is in our personal audience --- who we are trying to please --- and to act conscientiously upon our beliefs! This kind of life may be difficult, and even frightening, but it will never be boring.
Friend, integrity begins when we establish what we value. Being a person of integrity means that one must have a clearly defined code of ethics and live by it!
This is the root of the integrity problem for many people, who think that it is possible for a person to live without a set of values. They “go along to get along.” Then they wonder why they are unable to know what to do in a crisis. Such people suffer from moral vertigo --- a loss of a sense of direction.
Today, the idea has become popular that morality and values are simply matters of opinion and preference. Ernest Hemingway said, “What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”
When it came to his life’s work, Hemingway knew the value of truth. In one of his short stories, “A Movable Feast,” he described his struggle to write. When the wells of creativity dried up, he would tell himself, “Do not worry. You have written before, and you will write now. All you must do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
Beginning with one simple, true sentence he would proceed to write his novels. Friend, it is a difficult story that does not begin with truth, it is difficult to write the stories of our lives without truth. Integrity demands that we make choices about what is important to us and be prepared to live with those choices.
In his helpful book “Integrity” a few years back, Henry Cloud points out that integrity is much more than honesty or reliability. He traces the word to its Latin root which means intact, integrated, undivided, uncorrupted. Cloud explains:
“When we are talking about integrity, we are talking about being a whole person, an integrated person, with all our different parts working well and delivering the functions they were designed to deliver. It is about wholeness and effectiveness as people. It truly is "running on all cylinders."
This sort of integrated personality and lifestyle is the "missing link" in the skilled athlete who can't resist the temptations of drugs and sex; the physical discipline necessary to be in shape isn't integrated with his psyche. It is the same with the brilliant theorist or dynamic speaker or winning vote-getter who can't resist being corrupted by money or power over others.
None of us want to be phony, an imposter dancing back and forth between one way of life and another. Personally, I believe each of us wants to live true lives, lives of integrity, and live with a clear unified purpose.
With these thoughts in mind, let me encourage you, on May 21st, to only vote for those who have proven their integrity. Such persons will make it easier for you to continue living a life of integrity.
Thank you for taking the time to read what we have shared today. We look forward to sharing more thoughts with you soon.
Friend, “Cultural hope is riddled through and through with the vacillating problems of our changing values, whereas Christian hope is woven through and through with the promises of our unchanging God.”
The Bible says, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” (Numbers 23:19)
Friend, it is a difficult story that does not begin with truth, it is difficult to write the stories of our lives without truth. Integrity demands that we make choices about what is important to us and be prepared to live with those choices. None of us want to be phony, an imposter dancing back and forth between one way of life and another.
In conclusion, I genuinely believe each of us desires to live true lives, lives of honesty and integrity, with a clear unified purpose.
May you and I always desire to live our lives with integrity!
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INTEGRITY
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