Psalm 26: Integrity

C.S. Lewis said, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” Using this definition, integrity is the character from which our actions flow, it is who we are far more than it is what we do, it is the condition of our heart. In Psalm 26 David began by saying, “I have walked in my integrity” and then he closed by declaring “I shall walk in my integrity”. The question I’m wrestling with today is, was David posturing or praying? Was he pointing to his rightness or asking for God’s righteousness? Was he sure of himself or seeking assurance from God?

David began the Psalm with a request for God to “vindicate” him. The Hebrew word that is used here is “shaphat” which is usually translated as “judge”, but in this case it means “to declare righteous”. David was not making a declaration about himself, rather he was asking God to make a declaration on his behalf. This needs to change the way we read the Psalm. David was not demanding that God respond or react to his integrity, he was not asking God to be transactional, to bless him because he’d done what was right, he was asking God to measure him and see the true weight of his heart.

David was honest, “I have walked in my integrity”. The use of the possessive pronoun “my” means that he was not saying that he knows he had always done the right thing; he was saying that what he’d done has been what seemed right to him. David was not setting himself up as the example of integrity, he was asking God to search his integrity and see if it measured up to the standard. David was teaching us that even something as simple as doing what was right, was outside of his power and in need of God’s direction.

David wasn’t selling himself as righteous, he was doing the opposite, he was asking for his righteousness to be tested. The Hebrew word we translate as “integrity” also means “completeness”. David was yielding to something that many of us fight against, the reality that what we know is often less than what we need to know. In Isaiah 55, God said that His thoughts and His ways are higher than ours. In I Corinthians 13, Paul wrote that we see through a glass darkly, we look into the mirror and only see a dim reflection, he said that even when we prophesy, even when the Holy Spirit of God is speaking through us, it is only in part. In other words, none of us know as much as we think we do or see as clearly as we need to. Does this mean that we are set up for failure, that God has set us on a path that we are destined to wander from? No, it’s the reality that we were created to be dependent upon God, to be followers of Jesus, not leaders of our own way. David was writing that he had done the best he could, walked in what he knew, even tried his very best, but he understood that his best was insufficient unless it was placed in God’s hands.

David prayed, “Prove me . . . try me . . . test my heart and my mind . . .” In other words, he was saying, “Here’s my integrity, prove it to see if it’s pure, try it to see if it’s strong, test it to see if it will last.” The bad news for all of us is that our best is never going to be good enough. Our hearts are deceitful, our righteousness is like filthy rags, our minds are far too often conformed to the pattern of this world. We don’t need to be or do better, we need to be changed, we need to be different. The good news is that Jesus didn’t come to judge us, He came to transform us. II Corinthians 5 talks of the ministry of reconciliation, how the work of Jesus takes us from what we were into what we were created to be. Paul wrote that when we are in Christ that we are new creations, that the old things pass away, and all things become new. To use Psalm 26’s language, our incomplete integrity is traded for Jesus’ perfect work, our hearts of stone are removed and replaced with hearts of flesh, our bent to want things our way is straightened so that we can begin to hunger and thirst for God’s ways. But there is one statement that Paul makes in that passage that should stand above all the rest, it shines a new light on the cross and it answers David’s prayers in Psalm 26: “For our sake God made Him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” God put all the punishment on the One whose integrity was perfect so that He could then put His perfect integrity upon us.

At the end of the Psalm when David declares, “I shall walk in integrity”, it is prophetic the outcome of a prophetic exchange. When I put my broken integrity into God’s hands, He counts to me the perfect integrity of Jesus. When I surrender my tattered righteousness, He clothes me in Jesus’ righteousness. When I relent my self-centered ways, He leads me in the ways that make my paths straight, that makes my feet secure and that establishes my future forever. A dear friend of mine shared Philippians 2:13 this week, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.” It is not our job to measure up, but rather it is our calling to hand it over. If we are willing to put our hearts, our ways, our wants, our best in God’s hands, He is both willing and able, to take our used up and ineffective ashes and fill our lives with His perfect beauty. It is a trade that is always in our favor, but it must start with the submission of what we have so that we can receive what He’s done. True integrity is not just doing what’s right, it’s giving ourselves, heart, mind and body, to the righteous One. When we give it all to Jesus, He is faithful to give us all we need.