Hanging on to Integrity

Marty* has a habit of offering her reasons why things happen. She speculates about the plans of God concerning every event, particularly those that seem negative. She means well in that she is trying to encourage people to look for good and a positive outcome, yet I’m a bit skeptical because every time I’ve tried to second-guess God, I’ve missed it. (*Marty is not her real name)

Marty’s positive approach is better than seeing evil behind everything. We all know people like the woman who complained about the weather every Sunday as the pastor shook her hand after the service. One day, the sun was shining, the temperature perfect. The pastor wondered how she could be negative when he said, “Nice morning, Mrs. Jones.”

She replied, “Yes, but it is raining some place.” Mrs. Jones’ line has become a bit of a family joke that we throw into conversation every now and then. We always laugh.

I’m thinking today how Job’s friends were more like Mrs. Jones than Marty. When Job lost everything including his health, they were determined that he must have some hidden sin in his life and God was punishing him for it.

Job denied this. He knew he was not perfect and he knew God had some reason for what he was doing, but he insisted that he had no idea what these calamities were all about. He also insisted that he had no known sin that must be confessed.

His “friends” kept at him, thinking he must be hiding something, but Job knew what happens to hypocrites. At one point he said, “For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he may gain much, if God takes away his life? Will God hear his cry when trouble comes upon him? Will he delight himself in the Almighty? Will he always call on God?”

Job loved God regardless of his moaning and complaining. God was keeping him in the dark yet this man knew that he must hold on to his righteousness and continue to trust Him without faking anything. He was in doubt and in pain. He complained and spoke about the feelings of his heart. He did not fake a piety that he was not feeling, yet whenever any insight or hope drifted through his broken spirit, he expressed that too. Job was a man of integrity, not a hypocrite.

This is why I cannot judge Marty or Mrs. Jones. Marty could be fearful inside and trying to talk herself out of it by her positive approach. Or she could be genuinely seeing hope in the middle of troubles and trials. The test of her integrity is the same as Job’s test: difficulties in life tend to bring out who and what we really are.

Mrs. Jones could be struggling with many discomforts in life too, and pretending to be happy with the inconsequential, like weather, would be hypocrisy for her. Or she could be a cranky, unthankful person with a bad attitude. Either way, if calamities happened, her mind might turn from nit-picking about the weather to an inner strength no one knew she had, or she could switch her complaining to a new topic, revealing an integrity of sorts, even though it is negative.

While God wants me to be filled with His Spirit, loving others, patient, kind, godly, and so on, He also does not want me to fake it. If I do, as Job says, I will not cry out to God when I’m in trouble because I will probably not admit that I am in trouble. I will not delight myself in God because I will be too busy worrying about keeping up appearances.

Worse yet, God may not listen to my cries because the pretense in my life is a sin. I need to deal with that first, before I can expect Him to lift me out of whatever calamity has happened.

When the world criticizes Christians for being hypocrites, they usually talk about the contrast between their profession of faith and their behavior. They dislike people who claim to be people of God but act otherwise. This is a legitimate criticism.

However, it is just as legitimate to criticize someone who seems to have their life in order, seems to love and care for others, seems to behave as a Christian “should” but who on the inside is unhappy, doubtful, dislikes people, and continually struggles with faith.

Integrity is where the inside and the outside match. The ideal is that I am a godly person in both thought and behavior, but Job shows me that if I struggle, I’d be wrong to pretend otherwise. He struggled, yelled and hollered about it, and the Bible commends him as a man who, in spite of his troubles, persevered in faith. Even though he obviously was not enjoying himself, he never lost his integrity.