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“Self-made
celebrity, you can’t even see that you’re
playing all the parts; you’re the starlet, the
publicist, the manager, the tabloid, even the “unidentified”
friend. You’ve got it down; you think you’re
a diva, a definite drama queen. You’ve turned
up the lights, and jumped onstage, driven by the desire
for attention, affection, adoration and more. How far
will you go? How long will you linger? Will you let
“innocent” temptation wait at your dressing
room door?
You
write your own life out like the script of a soap opera,
too dramatic, too perfect, too sappy, too cruel to be
real, because it’s not. Authenticity left the
auditorium long ago along with many other friends. Who’s
in the audience now, I don’t think you really
know and the question is do you really care? You’ve
promoted and sold a fake bill of goods and you wonder
why so many call for a girl who is not there. You are
a starlet hiding in the dark, you were never selling
out, you were proud to be you and to that godly girl
you said you would always be true. The only problem
is you checked your integrity at the door.”
The
above is a personal journal entry of mine that I wrote
in response to the growing number of young women creating
personal web pages. It seems that having a personal
website is the latest “must have” fashion
accessory. What breaks my heart is the number of girls
who promote themselves on their “spaces”
as someone in reality they are not. It seems as though
all spiritual integrity is left out of the mix, and
not integrated into this part of their lives. The answer
is not “to thine own self be true,” because
self is the biggest deceiver of all. We are tempted
to close our eyes to the truth and are lulled into believing
lie after lie. The answer is -to God the Father we must
be true!
After
having person after person in the Christian community
tell me about their personal sites and visiting those
sites my spirit agonized within me. The number one thing
emphasized on their sites was themselves. The fact that
they’re believers received just one or two lines.
I find it painful that some young women will say on
their sites that they are “all about Christ”
when the very amount of “self” content contradicts
their own testimony. Hour after hour is spent building
these personal sites to make young women into mini divas,
rockstars, and so on. Then more time is spent “networking”
themselves in case they might need these “contacts”.
We have a generation of young women raised in the midst
of media, advertisement, and Hollywood; to think they
do not know what they are doing is a joke. To sell themselves
has been ingrained in them. The problem becomes that
all the hours spent loving “self” are hours
not spent in the Word -growing, learning, and serving.
All the while the many young starlets wonder why they
live such powerless, defeated lives. They long for victory
in Christ and end up with the triumph of “self”.
Personal
websites are not wrong or all bad, the problems come
when they are used in such a way to manipulate and entice
the reader into believing lies about the young woman
who is the subject of the site. I wish I did not see
a lack of spiritual integrity in such sites. It is easy
to become tempted to be someone we are not when we hide
behind the monitor, but temptation is not an excuse.
The word integrity means to be whole, complete, not
divided, uncompromised, or uncorrupted(1). Are we not
to be women wholly after Christ? Is it not written about
David that he led the people with integrity of heart
(Ps 78:72)? About this same man it is written, “David
was a man after God’s own heart”(1 Sam 13:14).
If David’s heart for integrity was modeled after
God’s then what should ours be like? David shepherded
an entire country while walking uprightly before the
Lord. Even though he faced the temptations of power,
wealth and influence he did not allow these things to
keep him from the Lord’s work but rather as means
to accomplish it. David was king, a king more powerful
than Prince William will ever be. In his commentary
on the Psalms, Matthew Henry writes of David that, “he
aimed at nothing but the glory of God and the good of
the people committed to his charge” (2). Many
of us are only “wanna-be” queens and still
we struggle to not bring glory to self. Matthew Henry
also says of David, “Very discreetly he ruled,
sincere in what he designed yet prudent in what he did,
he chose out the most proper means in pursuit of his
end. For his God did instruct him to discretion.”
(3). Discretion means having or showing discernment
or good judgment in conduct and especially in speech
(4). Is not what one writes on their site considered
speech?
To
have integrity is to have no other end in view or in
mind except that which Christ has in mind for us. Integrity
comes down to bringing all of our desires in line with
God. David desired to live a life pleasing to God rather
than to man. We must ask ourselves what type of life
we would like to live. Do we live to please friends,
to win admirers and impress the world or do we live
to please God? I once read a philosophy research paper
that said, “A person is subject to conflicting
desires. If one simply acted at each moment out of the
strongest current desire, with no deliberation or discrimination
between more or less worthwhile desires, then one acts
clearly without integrity. Integrity thus requires that
one discriminate between first order desires [and lower
ones].”(5). So for example if I desire to lose
weight but I also desire to eat candy those two desires
conflict. To have integrity is to choose to serve that
which is the ultimate desire. But to choose that which
is best we must also believe that God is the God of
our desires, the Lord of our inner heart, and that he
knows and guides us in what is best for us.
Many of us know integrity to be “honesty”.
If this is true, when we color the truth to be more
than it is, or paint ourselves to be more or less than
we are, we are being dishonest, thus we are lying and
is not lying a sin? Sin causes us to become separated
from God. If integrity is also to be whole, complete
or undivided, this does not leave any room for separations.
When we are not honest about whom we are or present
ourselves to be other than we are, we lack the integrity
God intends for us to have. When we are walking in spiritual
integrity it means we are walking in oneness with the
Lord and his desires for our life.
I
want to encourage young women to walk in integrity,
to not keep your walk with the Lord on one burner while
you stir the pot on another. You cannot walk in victory
while divided in heart. You cannot be one girl on the
web and another in life. God’s Word even goes
high-tech; he doesn’t care what circumstances
may come into your life, live wholeheartedly in each
of them for Him and you will find the blessings of freedom.
Integrity applies to more than just the web; it applies
to any area of your life where you are dividing up your
personality to be one girl to please “this”
crowd and another girl to please “that”
crowd. It doesn’t matter whether anyone can call
you on it or not, that fact remains that Christ asked
us to be women of integrity. He will not force you to
live fully devoted to Him but it is you who will suffer
the constant entanglement of sin if you should choose
another way.
Seek
to become the woman that God created you to be and then
be her, at home, in public, and on the Internet…
wherever God may take you. Be true to Him who created
you.
Written
by Brooke Heidi
Bibliography:
1. “Integrity." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
2005.
http://www.merriam-webster.com (28 March. 2005).
2. Henry, Matthew. "Commentary on Psalms 78."
Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible. Blue Letter
Bible. 01 Mar 1996. 28 Mar 2005.
.
3. Henry, Matthew. "Commentary on Psalms 78."
Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible. Blue Letter
Bible. 01 Mar 1996. 28 Mar 2005.
.
4. "Discretion." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
2005.
http://www.merriam-webster.com (28 March. 2005).
5. Cox, Damian, La Caze, Marguerite, Levine, Michael,
"Integrity", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Summer 2001 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
URL =
6. All scripture used was taken from the NIV translation.
The NIV Study bible, Copyright 1985 by the Zondervan
Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506, U.S.A.
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