Read Proverbs 2:6-8

Anyone who knows my family knows that we are HUGE Disney fans. Every year we go to Walt Disney World, or one of the many Disney Vacation Club resorts. We love Disney movies and frequent the Disney stores, both in the malls and online. We LOVE DISNEY!!! One of my kids favorite channels is the Disney Channel and, as a parent, I couldn’t be happier because I at least know that the Disney channel shows age appropriate content.

Both of my daughters used to love the TV series “Hannah Montana.” They loved how Hannah could be a “rock star” and maintain a normal life. Miley Cyrus played the larger-than-life character in a way that made young girls the world over aspire to be just like her, to be a little wild and yet maintain the integrity of who they are as simple, everyday people. What an awesome thing to be able to, as the phrase goes, “have their cake and eat it to.”

But anyone who has been following the news lately knows that Miley Cyrus hasn’t quite the handle on that balance in real life. The wilder she gets, the more and more she seems to be losing the integrity that her on-screen alter-ego was able to keep. The reality is, no doubt, that she is being advised by people to “shake off” that “good girl” image so that she can move into the realm of being accepted by adults. Whoa! Pause and think about that? What does that say about us adults in terms of what we expect out of our entertainers?

Yet, not all young stars are taking that advice. Another Disney star, Selena Gomez, has been very firm in remaining true to who she is. It isn’t about being a “good girl” but about maintaining her own integrity. In a recent concert, she told her fans that the only way to be cool is to have class. AMEN!!! And she recently told Teen Vogue that she will “always be the girl you want to take home to your parents, not for the night.”

Thank God for young people like Selena who are showing our young ones that there is more to life than celebrity, popularity, sexuality and money. There’s a little word called, “integrity” that should trump all other things. But this isn’t just about young boys and girls. Everyone should come to embrace “integrity.” In this world, it seems that it is a word that is abandoned by many people. We are living and participating in a world of instant gratification, a world centered around “me”, and many of us get sucked up into it.

So the challenge for us today is for us to probe deep into our lives and see where we have integrity and where we don’t. Where are we seeking instant gratification at the cost of our integrity? Where we are centering life around ourselves rather than around God and God’s purpose of us? God is challenging each of us to remain true to who God has created us to be. God is challenging us to maintain integrity and to live a life that bears witness to hope as opposed to despair, healing as opposed to destruction, and wholeness as opposed to being incomplete. Will you rise to this challenge?