HIGHER CALLING - The battle for integrity!

I've been thinking a lot about integrity this year ... or rather the lack of it!

Seems as if my neighbors, acquaintances, political leaders (here & here), church leaders, MSM personalities (here & here & here), military personnel (here & here), preachers, Hollywood's Academy award committee, business leaders (here & here), stock brokers, UN officials (here & here), the judiciary, and even teachers (here, here, and here) are guilty of colossal ethical failures!

What brought this to a head is a local signage vendor who installed our church's sanctuary signage just shy of two years ago. Their product is delaminating, it looks horrible! I brought it to their attention over a year ago, but they've not shown a willingness to follow through; it appeared we were being stonewalled.

When the members brought the issue up at a recent business meeting, I knew I was in for a fight to keep this thing from spiraling out of control. My mind began to plot my revenge:

• First, I'd draft a post with the company's URL and business address, accompanied by a 2" x 3" jpeg of their corporate offices (did that)
  
• Then I'd print the draft and take a copy with me on a visit to the rat's nest (did that)
• Take photos of the problem to rub their noses in (took them)
  
• I'd also print out a big banner in Technicolor with the following message, "Our signage provided courtesy of XYZ Signs," address and URL provided courtesy of my church (planned that)
  
• Then I'd bring a sandwich board on my visit to show the embarrassment I planned to heap upon them two days a week until the problem was fixed ... the board would read "XYZ Signage brings shame to local church" (put that off)
  
• I'd pick up a small claims action application on the way over and drop it on his desk and say, "You want a piece of us?" (do that next time)
  

I hate to do this kind of stuff, it’s so unchristian but it makes great fantasy ... and I'm really a sick guy. At any rate I have a fiduciary responsibility to my church members and since no one else is willing to do this kind of stuff it's just added to my job description and voilà it's my responsibility.

Fortunately, God thinks more rationally than I do and so when the vendor saw the photos, he said, "Oh, I thought ... ." From there on he explained how he had misunderstood the problem and how his raw-material supplier was stonewalling him; he also said he was thinking of starting a blog to get even, maybe even picket their plant, and for sure go to small claims court.

Thank you LORD, for preventing me from sacrificing my integrity and my witness.