The Importance of Integrity

"If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow" was printed in black ink and hung just above my locker. It didn't take very long to figure out that if a quote was on the wall, Coach had it there for a reason. They were put there for our benefit so if we didn't fully understand what a quote meant, we needed to figure it out. 

After four years of running in and out of the Ladyneck Basketball locker room, I probably read that quote 300 times. I learned a lot playing basketball, but one of the most important lessons I learned is that walking with integrity is of utmost importance. If I made it a priority to do what was right in all areas of my life, it wouldn't matter what other people said about me. 

To this day, that quote remains engraved in the back of my mind. 

I think about it often.

In high school, it was not uncommon for someone to accuse me of being fake. They didn't think it was possible for someone to be "that" happy all time. 

They didn't understand. 
Heck, I didn't fully understand it myself! 

It troubled me that people thought I was being dishonest with them when in actuality, I really am a positive, joyful human being 92.5% of the time. It's just how I'm wired. 

I was confident in my joy, but their accusations made me question that confidence.

One day, I walked into the locker room just as I had done every day for the past two years. I glanced up at the quote on the wall I'd seen and read a hundred times, but this time it was different. For the first time, it stopped me in my tracks. It finally clicked. I understood. It didn't matter what people were saying about me or what they thought about me. All that mattered was that I was "[being] the same person privately, publicly, and personally." 

Ever since that day, I realized that if I was being true to my word, it didn't matter what I was falsely accused of. 

There are many values that make up a person. Integrity is the sum of those values. In other words, you have integrity if your actions consistently align with what you claim to personally value. What you do coincides with what you say. You walk the talk. You "do the right thing even when no one is watching." 

The qualities a person adheres to are meaningless unless that person has integrity. 

You can say all the right things, but until you prove it with your actions, you won't be heard. 

Proverbs 10:9 says, "Whoever walks with integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out."

People are always going to talk, but "if you stand straight, [you need not] fear a crooked shadow." 

Like I said, I learned a lot from the Ladyneck Basketball Program. It's no coincidence that as I sit here talking to you about integrity, I am reminded of the lessons Coach taught me without saying a single word. It wasn't just what she said, but what she didn't say, that made all the difference in my life. 

Question: Do your actions match your words? Are you walking with integrity? What needs to change so that what you say matches what you do?