Articles
Integrity Test
Aaron Sorkin told the following story in a commencement address at Syracuse University:
When we were casting my first movie, "A Few Good Men," we saw an actor just 10 months removed from the theater training program at UCLA. We liked him very much and we cast him in a small but featured role. ... The actor had been working as a Domino’s Pizza delivery boy ... so the news that he just landed his first professional job ... was met with happiness.
But as is often the case in show business ... a week later the actor’s agent called. The actor had been offered the lead role in a new, as-yet-untitled Milos Forman film. He was beside himself. He felt loyalty to the first offer but Forman was, after all, offering him the lead. We said we understood. No problem, good luck, we’ll go with our second choice.
Which we did. And two weeks later the Milos Forman film was scrapped. Our second choice, who was also making his professional debut, was an actor named Noah Wylie. ... I don’t know what the first actor is doing and I can’t remember his name. Sometimes when you think you have the ball safely in the end zone, you’re back to delivering pizzas for Domino’s (World, Aug. 25, 2012, p. 75).
The above anecdote presents a dilemma we are sometimes faced with: Do we keep our word and do what we said we would do even in the face of a “better offer”? Psalm 15 speaks of one who “may abide in Your tabernacle,” i.e., one who is approved by God and enjoys fellowship with Him. The man of godly integrity “swears to his own hurt and does not change” (15:4). Sometimes we commit ourselves to something or someone and find out later that it wasn’t to our best advantage to do so. Or we thought it wasn’t.
The young man in the story was wrong about his new movie opportunity: It flopped. The character lesson for us is to do what we say we will. But the practical lesson is that a “better offer” may not be better. If I do not follow through on my word, I have damaged my integrity with those who knew of the commitment, even if my better offer pans out. I’ll still have to ponder what it cost me in integrity to renege and leave others in a bad position.
From Noah Wylie’s point of view (veteran of the TV show "ER"), an initial rejection turned into a career break. God can providentially turn any circumstance to our advantage, but that providence often includes the advantage our own integrity brings. People appreciate our honesty and dependability. So keeping our word when it hurts might set the stage for a future advantage. The next time we are tempted to compromise for the “sure thing,” remember, the godly person is rarely hurt by keeping his word, defeat is sometimes camouflaged by the appearance of success.
