Devotionals

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Larry Lilly's Letter Friday August 5, 2005

The WIST offering for Monday, August 2, 2005 was a thought on integrity, though the word was not used in the text of the quote. WIST is a daily note with a good quote. It is often thought provoking, which if you know anything about Baptist's; you know the quotes would have to be nuclear to provoke thought.

“Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson knew the truth that we really live on the inside, in our heart and mind, and we make a serious mistake when we lie to others either outright or by ‘image.’ It is good to be well thought of by others. It is more important to well though of by ourselves.

How many people spend sleepless nights and haunting days hoping, “They never find out?” Are you one of these unfortunate souls? Years ago Smiley Blanton, fore runner of the modern Christian Psychologist movement said, “Your problem is not what you’re eating, but rather what’s eating you.” By this statement Mr. Blanton meant that we spend too much time fretting over things that way down deep we know we shouldn’t be doing, or for that matter being quiet about.

To note that life is not fair and supposed friends are playing games which they hope you are not aware of, is part of growing up. The most pathetic sight in the world is to observe a real game player plunge ahead as though no one is on to him, or her.

The loser as far as inner happiness goes is the person who tries to figure out the game and then ‘plays’ to win. This game has no quarter and never ends, and when life on earth comes to the last breath, all who play at games lose. Playing the games people play is an exercise in futility. To play games with your self, to comprise your integrity and pretend to yourself to be something other than the real you, is not only futile, is inner suicide.

The true winner is the person of integrity who faces things as they are, and then honestly seeks the knowledge and will of the Lord and sails ahead with a clear conscience before the Lord, with the innocence affirmed by the scriptures.

Shakespeare said it this way:

“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

The Bible is the mirror by which we can ‘see’ our inner self. We must never accept any other image of our inner self.

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2005 Use with credit.

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