A verse in Proverbs took me on a bit of a rollercoaster ride this morning. What began as a promise to claim soon revealed a pride to confess but then resulted in a praise to cry out. All from one verse! In the span of a just few minutes. Huh, who knew?

Whoever walks in integrity will be delivered,
       but he who is crooked in his ways will suddenly fall.

(Proverbs 28:18 ESV)

Whoever walks in integrity will be delivered . . . how’s that for a promise to claim?

If you’re honest, it says . . . if you have strong moral principles, it says . . . if you do what is right even when no one is looking, it says, then even when you may have been wronged it will be set right. Peterson sums it up, “Walk straight — live well and be saved” (MSG). That’s what it says. Or does it?

Reading it this way, I can claim some sort of high ground of walking in integrity, and along with it the promise of deliverance. I can rejoice that one day I will be justified though others attack my integrity today. And then I can find a rest in self-assessing and self-assuring that, as one who walks straight and talks straight, all will be set straight. So, I put in my thumb, and I pull out a plum, and I say, “What a good boy am I!” (Is that still a nursery rhyme, or did I just lose an entire generation or two?)

But then I look up the original word for integrity, and it has the idea of something a little different than our modern definition for integrity. Of something being whole, complete, unimpaired — something “entirely in accord with truth and fact”. As in something perfect. As in something without blemish. As in something blameless — which is how it is translated in the NASB, NIV, NKJV, and NLT. As in something not really me. Ouch!

While I might think I have integrity, to think I am blameless is an entirely different matter. And the Spirit uses a Hebrew lexicon to reveal a hidden pride. For in claiming the promise, my integrity was becoming my justification — and my eventual vindication — for wrongs against me even when I felt my walk was right. My integrity. And I’m struck with the awareness of a pride to confess. A pride to repent of. Heavy sigh!

But thank God for the cross where the price for my pride was paid. Thank God that the blood which cleanses from sin, again and again and again, was shed.

Thank God for the empty tomb and the risen Christ who alone IS blameless. Who is, like no other, whole and complete and unimpaired and lives “entirely in accord with truth and fact.” And thank God that by grace, through faith I am in Christ, and thus, I really do walk in Integrity. And in Him alone can I claim the promise that I assuredly will be delivered.

For in Him all God’s promises are Yes and Amen! (2Cor. 1:20). Amen?

From promise to pride to praise. All in a few minutes. Huh.

Only by His grace. Always for His glory.