By Mark A. Taylor
Yesterday we posted the first in a series of posts this month about integrity. We believe each one will challenge readers to grow deeper, to actually become in greater measure what they seem to be and what they say they want to be. But one aspect needs fuller discussion. None of our other posts specifically addresses how our prayer lives are a measure of our integrity.
Yesterday’s post by Randy Gariss touches the issue with his list of four disciplines to achieve integrity. Correctly, he begins with worship, and certainly he includes prayer as a part of that.
We posted Gariss”s essay first among our integrity pieces, because it provides a framework and foundation for everything that follows. If you read nothing else at our site this month, you must read this. Garriss’s strategies represent much more than a formula or checklist; they describe a way to live all of life without pretense or pollution. We”re guessing every reader will discover there steps to take toward wholeness.
But still there”s room to focus on prayer alone as a part of our “chase” after integrity. Prayer can cultivate and demonstrate a life of integrity like no other single pursuit.
Tim Keller makes this clear at the beginning of his book Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God. “If we give priority to the outer life, our inner life will be dark and scary,” he writes. “Even more seriously, our lives will lack integrity. . . . In short, unless we put a priority on the inner life, we turn ourselves into hypocrites.”
Keller suggests two prayer guidelines to test our integrity. First, consider what we think about “when no one is looking.” Do we quickly confess our sins to God, or only project an image to others of humility? Do we spontaneously, regularly praise God, or is our “positive, cheerful” persona only a front?
“If you aren”t joyful, humble, and faithful in private before God, then what you want to appear to be on the outside won”t match what you truly are,” Keller writes.
Second, Keller quotes a friend who says he can tell how much a person prays in private by listening to his prayers in public. “You can”t manufacture the unmistakable note of reality that only comes from speaking not toward God but with him,” Keller concludes.
In other words, prayer, the topic we almost failed to address this month, is the first priority in achieving true integrity. It”s all about the condition of the heart, not the words from my mouth or the look on my face.
For those of us whose ministry seems measured by our talk and bolstered by our demeanor, nothing could be a bigger challenge. The charge to face inward, first and daily, is a call for all of us to answer.
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