What’s Your Definition of Integrity?

March 27, 2022 No. 8

1 The LORD hates anyone who cheats, but he likes everyone who is honest. 2 Too much pride can put you to shame. It’s wiser to be humble. 3 If you do the right thing, honesty will be your guide. But if you are crooked, you will be trapped by your own dishonesty. (Proverbs 11:1-3 CEV)
In a dream, God had asked him what he wanted most, and Solomon replied, “an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil” (I Kings 3:9). I must confess that I don’t believe that I have ever prayed that exact prayer. I do recall asking for wisdom to make the right decisions as a township commissioner, but I don’t think I expanded the prayer to include discernment between “good and evil.” Since I am no longer a township official, still having to successfully interact among the people around me, I will begin asking God to help me to celebrate the good in people, while I am alerted to those bad people who would seek to do harm and create chaos in the lives of folks whom I care about.
I recently read a story about two world-class long-distance runners that, if you haven’t already heard it, bears repeating:
Spanish athlete Iván Fernández Anaya was competing in a cross-country race in Burlada, Navarre. He was running second, some distance behind race leader Abel Mutai, bronze medalist in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the London Olympics. As they entered the finishing straight, he saw the Kenyan runner Abel Mutai—the certain winner of the race, mistakenly pull up about 10 meters before the finish, thinking he had already crossed the line.
Fernández Anaya quickly caught up with him, but instead of exploiting Mutai’s mistake to speed past and claim an unlikely victory, he stayed behind, and using gestures, guided the Kenyan to the line and let him cross first.

Mutai had created an unsurpassable gap between the runners. Anaya was quoted as saying that he knew he was never going to be able to close the gap and win the race. Fernández Anaya did what, it might be noted, most other competitive runners would not have done—most other runners would have remained in competition mode and raced past the confused Mutai to win the race! No one would have faulted Anaya if he’d done just that.

Fernández Anaya is a very special athlete, a very special human being. Although we probably all would have passed by the Kenyan to win the race, Fernández Anaya explained that he would not have felt justified while being declared the winner. Fernández Anaya wouldn’t have been evil, but he certainly displayed wisdom and an amazing amount of integrity by helping the Kenyan runner Mutai move across the finish line ahead of him—thus winning the race.

Our scripture in Proverbs 11 gives us much food for thought. Fernández Anaya would not have been cheating had he run by Mutai to win the race. On his own conscience, Fernández Anaya would have had to live with his decision to ignore the obvious mistake; winning the race was not worth the guilty feeling he would have had.

Everyone has to make their own decisions in situations like this. All I can do is to hope I would emulate the example set by Fernández Anaya. God Bless…


Rick Schin 3/27/22