It's not too late to make a u-turn toward a life of integrity.

Integrity is living out your beliefs; it is congruency between your profession of faith and your walk with God. I suppose it would be fair to say that a man who beats his wife and brags about it has more integrity than a man who pretends to love his wife but is actually cheating on her. (Of course, the man who says he loves his wife and treats her with dignity is the honorable man—his integrity encompasses the full meaning of the term: authenticity and goodness.)

If you are to live out your beliefs, you have to know what you believe. This takes work. To live with maximum integrity, you will need to be intentional about discovering what your purpose for life is (your mission), to sort out your desires and goals (your vision), and know what are the basic standards to which you hold (your core values).

It is tough to formulate these thoughts overnight or all alone. Take several weeks or months to think about this issue, chewing it over in the back of your mind as you continue your daily life. Read other people’s mission statements (which are often posted on web sites and blogs) to jumpstart your own thinking on the topic. Take a friend or pastor or spouse out for lunch once or twice to discuss these issues, and ask each one of them to help you see yourself more clearly. Pray regularly that the Holy Spirit will guide you as you lay out a life plan for yourself.
Write out your mission statement (getting help from another source like Franklin Covey is perfectly appropriate, especially if writing doesn’t come easy to you) and place it in a location you will often be able to view it.

Your desire to intentionally seek a u-turn experience will be honored by God. "If you look for [wisdom] as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God," Proverbs 2:4.*

Thoughts posted by Heather Gemmen.