Integrity

​It was in part what the President wouldn’t say that disturbed a nation.  Liberty lowered her torch and sat on her pedestal of stone weeping from the bitter blow his pride struck.  She cried because he lied.  She sobbed because he robbed—he stole the trust of a nation to enjoy forbidden pleasures.  Tomorrow she will rise and light her torch.  But it will not burn as bright.  Around her base swirls water blackened with the slick oil of deceit. It’s mixture runs downstream leaching through soil at an alarming rate.  Her children are poisoned by this hazardous waste of rationalization that dares to call evil good and good evil. 

When the thunder of judgment claps from clouds of condemnation Liberty will not raise her voice with rush.  She will not shake her clenched hand in anger.  She knows that he is not the first to commit a sin.  He is the exposed and vulnerable chief of a mixed tribe in which not one member can fire an arrow from an unrepaired bow. 

She will cover her eyes and mourn because his conduct is a brazen blow to the cause of integrity.  While dishonesty burns like acid indigestion what hurts her most is that so many don’t care. Her spirit sags against this growing tide of apathy.  The loss of character hastens the death of trust.  People, who no longer see fit to honor God by saying “no” to selfish desires, will no longer honor one another.  
God said to King Solomon in 1 Kings 9:4,5:
"As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and in what is right, doing everything I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and ordinances, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David: You will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel."

Why should the same God who allowed His people to be conquered because they abandoned morality, allow us to prosper if we mortgage our integrity on whatever our hearts covet?  Abraham Lincoln said that for a man to train up a child in the way he or she should go, he must walk that way himself.  If ever there was a time to be walking, the bells toll now!  May God make us whole again that we might bring Him glory and shine before a world desperately trapped in the dark.  
 
Meditation
Psalms 17:3--You have tested my heart; You have examined me at night. You have tried me and found nothing evil; I have determined that my mouth will not sin.
Matthew 12:36-- I tell you that on the day of judgment people will have to account for every careless word they speak
 
Inspiration
Integrity means the unimpaired state of anything.—Oswald Chambers in The Servant As His Lord
 
©1998 Daniel York  ARR. Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)