Integrity at Home

August 4, 2022

I will be careful to live a blameless life—when will you come to help me? I will lead a life of integrity in my own home. Psalm 101:2 NLT

Throughout the Psalms we see David committing to God numerous times and asking for His help in leading a life of integrity. Perhaps his focus was impacted by his own great disappointment in his integrity failures when he drifted from God, and also from the pain the lack of integrity in others caused him. The phrase translated here as “I will lead a life of integrity” refers to a deep consistency between the inner life that no one sees and the outer life that is on display. This life is the direct opposite of a life of hypocrisy where the interior and exterior do not match. It’s the opposite of compartmentalization, where we live one way or another depending on the circumstances and environment.

David gets very specific here. He says explicitly that he will walk with integrity “in his own home.” That means more than his house, the place where he lives. His home is the intimate place where he really is himself. It is where he carries on his most intimate and significant relationships, where he raises his children, where his friends and advisors gather with him. It’s the place he feeds or neglects his family, the place where he spends time with God. Though we know David as a stellar man and a man who eventually owned God’s designation as a “man after my own heart,” David himself would acknowledge that his own home was the place where his integrity lost the most battles.

Can’t you identify with David? It is so easy to look good and do good “out there” but squander our integrity at home. We control our tempers, speak courteously, manage our ethics, and talk respectfully to people out there. We keep our promises and show up when we say we will to others, but we may be quite different when we’re with our family and friends or when we are alone. Our family may see a major disconnect between the versions of us they see. True success, true integrity is when the people who know you best respect and trust you most. We need to live lives where all the pieces of our lives fit together in a beautiful witness to the power and character of Jesus in us.

• What’s the integrity score for your own home? Your closest relationships? Your private life? Is there anything that doesn’t quite fit? Where do you find it hardest to live a life of integrity? Confess it to God and ask for His help in living the same before a crowd, in your home, or completely alone in honor of Jesus and the people He has put in your life.