All of us want to be people of integrity.
Unfortunately, sometimes the word “integrity” can be so broad that it’s meaningless, or so specific that it comes with heavy baggage.
Here’s our definition for you to try on: A thing has integrity when it aligns with its intended design.
- A bridge has integrity when you can drive across it safely.
- An educational system has integrity when it educates children and prepares them for the future.
- A family has integrity when its members are safe at home and supported in the world.
- A business has integrity when it contributes valuable goods and services and provides a fair wage for its employees.
But what does it mean for a human being to have integrity?
What is our design?
We believe that one way for us to think about our design is this:
We were designed to join God in the creation and restoration of the world and to join others in these efforts.
There is always the danger that we will hear this through the narcissism of our age, so I want to be clear:
We are not designed to pursue bigger platforms to meet our own grandiose ego needs.
We are not designed to live for the approval and applause of others.
We are not designed to change the world by ourselves.
But we also were not designed to keep our heads down, watching our feet and missing the sky.
We were made a little lower than the angels, invited to contribute creatively to the human systems in which we live.
I had a long conversation last week with a pastor who is looking back over the first half of ministry, wondering what’s next. As he thought about his formation in ministry, he realized that he found the design for ministry in his earliest and smallest church job: to live in relationship with Jesus and to point people in that direction creatively and lovingly.
While your definition may be different, recognizing this design protected him from the competing designs that were pushed at him on a regular basis: that ministry was about keeping everyone happy all the time. Or that ministry is about attracting people to the church in order to grow the numbers.
Joining God in creating and restoring isn’t a grandiose notion that we must (or even will) change the world with our talent or our determination. It is the recognition that we are called to align our lives with what it means to be fully human, as designed by God.
As we discern where to put our efforts, we will work for the re-creation and restoration of the intended design in the places where we live, work, and play. As we do so, those places will increasingly flourish – just as they were intended.
This gives our lives integrity.
