The Protection of Integrity
By Jennifer Slattery
“May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope, Lord, is in you.” Psalm 25:21
Sometimes obedience comes at a price. In this instance, my husband and I feared it’d cost him his job.
After a short career change and God’s leading, my husband had approached his previous employer and asked them to take him back. They said they would but weren’t sure where, at what capacity, or what level. Most likely, it’d involve a demotion and pay cut.
So here we were, a few months later in a new town and with my husband in a new position. He found himself tossed in the center of tension, which escalated quickly when someone got hurt with an injury that was, according to federal law, reportable.
Not only would the incident result in missed work, but it would negatively impact the shop director’s job review.
My husband’s boss determined to avoid this. His solution—falsify the report.
Phone to his ear, my husband scrubbed a hand over his face. “I can’t do that.”
I could hear his boss’s voice elevate on the other end, but my husband remained firm, and after another refusal, hung up. Neither of us slept well that night. Though we knew he’d done the right thing, we also understood life holds no guarantees, and there are times God allows us to experience injustice. We worried, should things unravel, the situation would come down to his word versus his bosses.
We chose to believe if that occurred, my husband’s pattern of integrity would speak loudly. And it did. Not long after, the company performed an audit, revealing a web of fraud and dishonesty, and none of it involved my husband. As a result, his boss and several involved managers were fired while my husband was promoted.
Integrity speaks, and the truth almost always comes out in the end. By choosing to honor God in every situation, we protect ourselves from false accusations and speculation and demonstrate our commitment to a God that is above all, even dishonest bosses.
Jennifer Slattery is a writer, editor, speaker, and the founder of Wholly Loved Ministries. She writes for Crosswalk, is the author of eight contemporary novels, and helped write Wholly Loved’s Bible study based on the life of Sarai (Gen.12-23) titled Becoming His Princess, releasing in the spring/summer of 2019. When not writing, reading, or editing, Jennifer loves going on mall outings with her adult daughter and coffee dates with her hilariously fun husband. Visit her online at jenniferslatterylivesoutloud.com.
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Originally published Tuesday, 21 May 2024.
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