What you do when no one is watching...

Have you ever used the work photocopier to do your own personal stuff? Or the work phone to catch up with your buddies? Or even gotten too much change in a store and kept it when you knew that you should have pointed out the error to the shop assistant.

Every now and again we find ourselves caught up in one such situation or the other.
We tell ourselves that everybody does it so hey what's the big deal? Well the big deal is God is watching and He doesn't think it's a small thing...He doesn't like it one bit!

I remember going through this lesson a few years ago  I was quite good at taking a paper clip here and a pen there from work and printing my stuff using the office printer and paper. The laminator, scanner and all the other gadgets were crying for mercy as well.
Then there was the work phone, I thought it's purpose was to help me keep in touch with my girls.
Wrong!
God started saying stop but I thought hey they don't pay me enough in the company anyway so this is part of my benefits. Eventually I got called into my manager's office and warned about the way I used the telephone. I knew things had obviously gotten out of hand and I prayed for God to help me refrain from misusing company things.Sigh...Praise God, with time I became better.

Then came the issue of what is called The Free Bus. There's one particular bus in my area dubbed the free bus because people at times get in and don't bother paying because it had several doors and if you use one of the back doors no one checks whether you have a ticket or not.
Now being a middle class person myself at the moment, when funds were tight the temptation was there to just walk into the bus. But God always had such a strong hold on me, I just couldn't do it. I felt so bad. And then came the one day I was so tempted to almost do it....the Inspectors got on the bus to check tickets...thanks goodness I hadn't, I would have been in a bowl of hot soup plus a nasty fine.

I realise now that developing Integrity and Honesty is a continuous process that has to be dealt with over and over. You become better with time, but we have to continuously renew our minds and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us in all our actions.

Jesus is the Truth and if we are to be anything like Him we need to try and speak and act in accordance with the truth. Integrity and Honesty are two very key elements which God values. Joseph and Daniel were two men that displayed integrity in the bible and God honoured this and elevated them. If you show yourself to be a person of integrity, God will promote and elevate you to a position of influence because He can trust you.

So the next time you go online at work and start messing about on Facebook and Twitter when you are supposed to be working, remember that even though no one may see you...God is watching and deciding whether you really are ready to go to the next level you are praying for...