Impeccability

There are a lot of people asking other people, these days, what they believe. Do you believe in climate change, the death penalty, God, war, abortion, lying? As if beliefs matter. They don’t. The world is made and functions under laws—-or the word no one wants to hear anymore—-rules. The laws are, for the most part, fixed, immutable and consistent. Your mind is rapidly scanning through all the known data to disprove what I just said. We don’t like black and white, true or false subjects with no wiggle room. Take it up with gravity. If you step off your roof, you are only headed in one direction.

The rules of man may appear to provide that wiggle room humans seem so fond of, and yet, they are rules in the first place because they are vital to a life well lived. And while the transgression of many of them may not have the immediate finality of gravity, their violations still have consequences.

This is not the place to make a list of all the negligible laws man should or shouldn’t mess with. The Old Testament, the Koran, the Talmud, already narrowed the list of immutable to Ten. Jesus reduced that list to Two.

Governments struggle everyday with their own lists. But if you pay attention to history, there has always been one thing among men held to be absolute: his word. Everyone has heard the saying: “If a man loses his word, he has lost everything”. There was a time, if you were caught stealing you would lose a finger. Get caught again, a hand. But get caught not keeping your word, other men would kill you. This is how important and sacred moral integrity was held. It’s the whole basis for trust. So when did lying, about anything and everything, become excusable?

We are currently in danger of losing our moral ground. We see it most clearly in our public officials, talking out of both sides of their mouths, saying one thing and doing another, not fulfilling their promises, and not holding each other accountable. Even sadder, we the public allow it. Why? Probably because if we call them on their stuff, they’ll call us on ours.

We have a boatload of sins we need to clean up and atone for, but I suggest the boat would be a lot lighter if we would address this one thing in ourselves: Being our Word.

The laws in our psyche are as strict as those in the physical universe. When we choose to violate, not what we believe, but what we know to be right and wrong, we have a failure to be. If we don’t keep our internal agreements, where are we going to stand when the wind blows?

Be Impeccable With Your Word, the saying goes.
How much impeccability do we bring?

We have Reasons, and we have Results.
Which table are we playing at?