What is Integrity ?

A question that some may not, or cannot answer.

"The Lord is near all that call out to Him, all that call out to Him with integrity."(HCSB). It sounds as if God is actually requiring us to have integrity when we pray to Him. Webster describes integrity as--"an adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character, honesty." Developing and maintaining integrity require constant attention. It is absolutely essential to have integrity if you desire to become a person of influence. Anytime you compromise your integrity, you do yourself an incredible amount of damage. That's because integrity really is your best friend. It will never betray you or put you in a compromising position. It keeps your priorities right. When your tempted to take shortcuts, it helps you stay the right course. When others criticize you unfairly, it helps you to keep going and take the high road of not striking back. And when others criticism is valid, integrity helps you to accept what they say, learn from it, and keep growing.

The bottom line when it comes to integrity is that it allows others to Trust you. And without Trust you have nothing. Trust is the single most important factor in personal and professional relationships. And it is a key to becoming a person of influence.
When you earn peoples Trust, you begin to earn their confidence. In order to be a leader, a man must have followers, a man must have their confidence. The supreme quality for a leader is unquestionable integrity. Your talk and actions must square with one another . Therefore integrity must be counted as the highest purpose to benefit trust.
When people begin to trust you, your level of influence increases, and that is when you are able to begin impacting their lives.

Here is a short story of how your talk and actions must square with one another to be trusted by your followers.
When I was in the Fire Service I had a Captain that was over a team of seven men, When he ask us to go into a burning structure there was no doubt on any of our minds to even hesitate at such a command. Why? Because he had proven to us and faught fire beside us in most every situation that we had ever faced. He would always tell us " I will never send you into anything that I wouldn't go into myself." And we believed him because we had seen him back that statement up. His Actions were always Squaring up with his talk.

When people begin to trust you, your level of influence goes up. Power can be a dangerous thing . In most cases those who want power probably shouldn't have it, and those who have it probably enjoy it for the wrong reason. Use power to help people. There is but one just use of power and it is to serve people. Here is a question to ask yourself when you seem to be getting a little ambitious and your focus seems to be blurring .... "If the Whole World followed me , Would it be a better World?"

"The Lord is near all who call out to Him, all who call out to Him with integrity." (Psalm 145:18)

PaulP