24Put away from you a deceitful mouth, And put perverse lips far from you.25Let your eyes look straight ahead, And your eyelids look right before you.26Ponder the path of your feet, And let all your ways be established.27Do not turn to the right or the left; Remove your foot from evil.
Honesty - integrity - character. These are all words that remind us of the type of people that I believe we are called to be as believers in Christ. And, by God's grace and according to His power, we can actually be people who tell the truth. In an era where it is very easy to commit private sins and be less than forthcoming in how we account for ourselves, I believe the Bible teaches us to maintain a good conscience and be accurate in our words and forthright in our actions.
When you attempt to cover up an offense, you actually commit a second sin and could increase the degree of consequence for your errant action. Integrity overcomes duplicity, and we are called to be people who do not live double lives, who can't be trusted, but who are completely trustworthy.
Proverbs chapter 10 discusses the concept of personal integrity, which is honoring to God:
9He who walks with integrity walks securely, But he who perverts his ways will become known.10He who winks with the eye causes trouble, But a prating fool will fall.11The mouth of the righteous is a well of life, But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
By the way, that word, "prating" means to talk idly and at length; remember, the Bible warns against "idle chatter".
Honest Tea is a company that sells organic bottled tea, and apparently it does pretty well with it. Now, it wouldn't be if it gave its product away very much, but it did take that risk in setting up kiosks in some 61 cities across America. Here's how it worked, according to USA Today: The company scored honesty by setting up unattended kiosks where its beverages were available for $1. A clear, locked box was left for people to make payments. Honest Tea employees observed from nearby.
This is not the first time that Honest has attempted to measure honesty - and gain some attention in the process. In 2009, two Honest employees left a rolling cooler filled with Honest Tea in a public square in San Francisco with a sign that read “Please Don’t Touch; Back in 15 Minutes.” They watched from across the street to watch and within 15 minutes the entire cooler was emptied. Honest said that this prompted them to wonder about the honesty of people in other areas of the country. In 2010, they brought unmanned racks to 8 cities and discovered 89% of people were honest and paid for beverages, and in 2011, they focused on 12 cities in one day and 94% of people were honest. In 2012, the National Honesty Index was born, based on tests in 35 cities over the course of one week and discovering 93% of people were honest overall.
So this year, the research was expanded even further, and the results are in: In Alabama and Hawaii, honesty is the best policy. Using data gathered from experiments conducted in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., the National Honesty Index found that overall, Americans were honest 92% of the time. The states deemed to be "most honest", according to the index: Hawaii and Alabama, with people being honest 100% of the time.
Seth Goldman, co-founder and CEO of Honest Tea, said, "We've conducted our experiment in different cities over the past few years, but this is the first time we've conducted the experiment on a national scale...Even though my bicycle was stolen the same day as our D.C. experiment, it's reassuring to know that 92% of Americans will do the right thing even when it seems no one is watching."
Washington, D.C., received the lowest ranking with participants being honest 80% of the time.
Well, congratulations to Alabama for being at the top of the list! This study calls attention to a virtue that is so valuable to our lives. We want to be people who are trustworthy, and I believe that, quite simply, telling the truth pleases God.
The practice of truth-telling has benefits in many areas of our lives. In the home, we expect our children to give us accurate reports and to be forthright in coming forward when they have done something wrong, rather than try to cover it up. Once a mistake is made, to confess and apologize is an admirable quality that we should model and expect our kids to develop.
In our marriages, we are not called to live secret lives or separate lives from our spouses, constructing scenarios where we have private endeavors that we don't want them to know about.
In the workplace, telling the truth is also a great virtue. For instance, making sure the company's resources are properly accounted for is a critical way that you can practice the fine art of truth-telling. Spending time for which your employer is paying you doing other activities is a subtle form of stealing. Keeping an accurate tally of expenses is another way that you exhibit your integrity.
And, often, no one will ever know if we're not being totally honest. But, the ultimate judge will, for one thing. If we are truly trying to please God, then we will want to be people of integrity, building Godly character. It's been said that integrity is something that we perform when no one's looking. And, if we're growing in Christ and desiring to obey Him, then we'll recognize that He would want us to tell the truth. We can depend on the Holy Spirit to show us where we are falling short in this area of character.
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