Strive for Integrity, Not Popularity

‘Honesty guides good people...’ Proverbs 11:3 NLT

Joseph refused the advances of Potiphar’s wife, not because he thought he couldn’t get away with it, but because he knew he couldn’t live with himself if he accepted them. Ted Engstrom writes, ‘The world needs people who cannot be bought; whose word is their bond; who put character above wealth; who possess opinions and a will; who are larger than their vocations; who don’t hesitate to take chances; who won’t lose their individuality in a crowd; who will be as honest in small things as they are in great things; who will make no compromise with wrong; whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires; who will not say they do it ‘because everybody else does it’; who are true to their friends through good report and evil report, in adversity as well as in prosperity; who do not believe that shrewdness, cunning and hard-heartedness are the best qualities for winning success; who are not afraid to stand for the truth even when it’s unpopular; who say ‘no’ with emphasis, even though the rest of the world says ‘yes’.’ In what he calls a compromise of integrity, psychiatrist Leo Rangell analyses the relationship between former President Nixon and some of his closest confidants in the Watergate scandal. He records a conversation between Senator Howard Baker and Nixon aide Herbert Porter. Baker: ‘Did you ever have qualms about what you were doing?’ Porter: ‘Yes, I did!’ Baker: ‘Why didn’t you [do anything]?’ Porter: ‘…Group pressure… the fear…of not being considered a team player.’ So strive for integrity, not popularity!