Integrity, the Fragrance of Friendship

By Alice Scott-Ferguson

Despite the intervening years of changes, disagreements and distance, the following instance is the most enduring and impressive memory I have of our friends Anna and Ian from England. We were new to the church that had planned a Saturday afternoon picnic. As we were equally new to the area, they arranged a rendezvous point from which we would then drive together to the site of the picnic. However, we succeeded in getting hopelessly lost in the maze of English country lanes and arrived over an hour late. There they were, still waiting for us. Our loyal friends greeted us warmly, with great relief and without reproach. Proven trustworthy, they earned that rare and special description accorded few—people of integrity.

Since the word integrity is used to describe products and companies that produce anything from records to razor blades, let’s consult Webster’s to re-acquaint ourselves with the dictionary meaning. Straightforwardness of conduct; trustworthiness, incorruptibility to the degree that one is incapable of being false to a trust, responsibility or pledge; tried and proven. Reads like a dream description of the kind of candidate anyone would want for an employee, friend or spouse. We all fall woefully shy of such a standard and mourn the passing of an era when a man’s word was his bond, when we felt more sure of promises from politicians, more secure that marriage vows would hold and that parents would stay together, simply because we had pledged we would.

Though we may bemoan degenerating mores with the passing of the generations, grumbling self-righteously about what the world is coming to, we cannot ignore the possibility of the mote and plank predicament where we must first deal with our own lack of integrity. The Father’s standards are not a distant list of commandments out of reach of mortal man, but a guiding internal principle of love, a love that leads us in righteousness, trustworthiness and honesty simply because His life is in us. Where integrity ought to be axiomatic to Christianity, so often it is absent in our everyday lives. Do we keep our word, pay our bills and stay true to our friends?

It does not take long in any conversation these days before folks are exchanging rapid-fire examples of how prevalent and extensive in society is the failure to keep one’s word. From workmen who don’t arrive on schedule, people who never return our calls or emails, to friends who repeatedly change plans and promises on a seeming whim. The cumulative effect of people not saying what they mean and meaning what they say leaves us bewildered at best and cynical at worst. The challenge is to stay sweet; redolent with His righteousness.

When we judge another’s lack of integrity without considering our own failings, we become prideful, legalistic and unloving. The motivation of the heart is ever the litmus test. Do we care about the person waiting for the return phone call or is it about us looking good? I used to pride myself in never arriving late. (Guess how hard it was arriving so late in the picnic situation!) I wanted to bask in the reputation of, “Alice is always on time.” Well, I am married me to a guy who has no such scruples, so my pride has long since turned to ashes. But, it has served to make me examine the all-important question of motivation. Nowadays, wanting to be on time has more to do with courtesy and consideration for the other person than about feeding my vanity.

Integrity will also insist that we speak truth whether it is easy or hard. When we consider that God created us with truth receptors before the father of lies programmed us to believe untruth, it is an insult to either be told or tell less than the truth one to another. Use diplomacy yes, but not deception. Jesus exhorted us to be as wise as serpents, but harmless as doves. (Matt. 10:16) This must have been what Samuel Johnson had in mind when he used the voice of his character Rasselas to say, “Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”

Certainly, money without integrity is dangerous terrain. One of the most potentially explosive areas of our lives is in the minefield of money. Dishonesty in the matter of Mammon soon comes home to roost and not always quietly either. Note the prominent preachers of the last few years whose unscrupulous fiscal affairs God exposed to the watching world. This not to hurt and humiliate the child He loves, but in order to stop the run-away train of deception and return them to the track of truth.

We may not head a huge ministry, but we still need to take stock of our financial responsibilities even though the amounts may be modest. Do we pay back the “important” debtor before we pay back the ten dollars we owe a friend who covered the bill for lunch when we forgot our checkbook? I recall the story of a couple that gave a car to their friend with the understanding that, when she was able, she would repay the debt. She received a gracious and generous gift from someone to cover this very exigency. However, a more esteemed minister of the Gospel was the beneficiary of the money. Thus, her gift gained her the applause of men, while her lack of integrity failed her faithful friends.

Integrity towards our friends features many facets. Are we there, for example, when their circumstances change? When death or divorce leaves them in a tailspin that may alter their behavior for a time or sickness settles in despite their faith to be made whole? There is a pithy little saying that is so applicable in such instances. “Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.” That may mean listening for months on end to the haunted heart of a friend whose husband committed suicide; standing by a divorcee, even though she initiated the actions that severed a marriage, or sitting with the sick in tender silence without the need of an explanation. Self-centered assessment of discomfort or disapproval will dilute our effectiveness in such crises. We need to learn that not everything in life is about us and integrity will demand that we consider others’ needs before our own.

There are few experiences as gut wrenching as betrayal. And only a friend can betray, as Michael Card sings in a song referring to Judas ensnaring Jesus. The quest for power, popularity or fame, compromise our commitment and loyalty to our friends and we find ourselves willing to desert them for the people who can help us get to the top. We are ready to deny the tried and true or even destroy their reputation to establish our own. A trusted fellow worker once lied about me in order to cover her own tracks; the betrayal left a bruise that only forgiving her could relieve. A good test of integrity is noting how we speak of someone when he or she is not present. Can we say face to face what we say behind their backs?

As we take inventory of our souls, we will no doubt come face to face with our own culpability in, or capability of, failing our friends. I am reminded of some of the words of an anonymous author in a piece called The World Needs Men… who cannot be bought/whose word is their bond/who will be as honest in small things as in great things/who are true to their friends in adversity and prosperity. Not only our friends and associates, but the world needs to see our good works so that they will glorify our heavenly Father. (Matt. 5:16) He is faithful, trustworthy and true and those same attributes are ours by virtue of the Life by which we now live. The recollection of that picnic in the English countryside has faded long ago, what lingers is the fragrance of our friends’ faithfulness.