integrity

Today the Lord gave me a refresher course on integrity. I’m sure that He does this with all of us, as we tend to become sloppy and “forget” the right way to do things, at times. Today I forgot my watch. Because I take vital signs frequently at work, I need my watch. One of the staff at work was just clocking out from working the night shift and said “Here, take my watch. When you are finished, just put it in my locker. I leave it unlocked because there is nothing in there to steal,” she said with a laugh. Her locker was decorated with cherubic pictures of her two young nephews so I knew I could tell it from the other lockers. What a nice lady! I thought, and thanked her. “Lord, remind me to put her watch back,” I prayed, and began my busy day of being a medical provider.

It was a good day, and passed by quickly. I remembered to put my keys back (it’s a huge “no no” to take them home!) and drove home. Only 6 or 7 minutes drive, and I was in my door. It was a nice time to relax . . . and then I saw the watch on my wrist! “Oh no!” I forgot to put the watch back. I called to verify the nice lady was working that night, and after hearing a “yes”, I got in the car and began the trip back.

Then I heard, “He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not” (Ps 15:4) in my spirit. The Lord was pointing out a scripture that described what I was going through; I had promised (sweareth) to return the watch; it was an inconvenience (own hurt) to keep my word; and I had decided not to change (changeth not) what I said I would do. The Lord then pointed out that this is how we build integrity in the inner man. The sloppy way would be to apologize for forgetting, without making an attempt to perform my word. How easy it would have been to say “I forgot!” and leave it at that.

“Care more about others than you care about yourself.” This was the second prompting of the Lord, and I thought of “Look not every man on his own things, but also on the things of others.” (Phil 2:4). God wants us to care so much that we would be inconvenienced rather than inconvenience another.

I walked down the long hall to put the watch in the nurse’s lounge. It wasn’t as embarrassing as I anticipated. On the way back I passed the nice lady, who was coming in to work. She must not have had much sleep! I thought. I was happy to see her . . . and happy I had left her the watch she would need for her shift!

I believe God uses the little things of this life to teach us how to train our hearts and our minds to follow His righteousness. He knows our nature is weak and that we would prefer to take the “easy” way. But what the Lord led me to do also will teach me not to be so forgetful. As children we are taught by our parents to do what we say we will do. Sometimes there is a punishment hanging over our heads if it turns out we have no intention of performing our word, because that is lying. As adults we “parent” ourselves to follow through with our actions, matching them up with our words. Or, sometimes we “forget”, and do nothing to correct ourselves.

“Love to forget . . . “ came the next prompt of the Holy Spirit. I’ll have to look this one up in the Bible, I told myself. Finding it closely stated in 2 Peter 3:5, it reads, “But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water.” This is a passage where Peter is talking about scoffers who say that things continue the same as they used to be, and “Where is the ‘coming’ He promised?” (vs 4). These scoffers didn’t see the correlation between God’s Word and the recompense of not keeping it, so they did evil (vs 3) and “deliberately” forgot His word. This kind of forgetting is one of denial . . . when we deny that there is a consequence to disobeying God’s word. People who love to forget cannot be trained by their obedience to God’s word, and so they fail to develop integrity in the inner man.

The scriptures the Lord shared with me show that there is a forgetfulness of my own word, which will lead me to unrighteousness, and there is a forgetfulness of God’s word, which will do the same. God was doing me a favor to allow things to come into my life to test the performance of my word, and of His Word. If I hadn’t kept my word to the lady who trusted me with her watch, neither would I have obeyed the scriptures He later quoted to me. Though God is patient, forgetfulness interferes with the forming of integrity in the inner man.

I wonder if I can live tomorrow keeping my word, and not loving to “forget” what I have promised to God, or to Man? With God, all things are possible because He faithfully reminds us. Amen.