You learn a great deal about a guy/girl by watching them play dodgeball. I don’t pay attention to how they throw, or leap, or dive — though those can be entertaining for sure — I pay attention to how they get out. Or rather how they react to being hit by an opponents ball, and should be out.
Ever since the youth group has had access to a gym, dodgeball has become the default game of choice for the group. Though not every single person in the group likes it, most of them do. And with the high tech balls that don’t really hurt, just about anyone of any skill level can participate.
There are basically two types of players — those who unfailingly call themselves out when they are hit. And those who do not. Man, do I have a ton of respect for those that do. They will get whiffed by a ball where it will barely touch them and in such a fast game, they could easily say “Didn’t hit me” but they don’t. They toss their ball and walk to the sideline — every time.
The ones that don’t? Well, they usually get hit, do a quick glance back and forth acting as if they are just watching for a throw to come at them from anywhere on the court, but in reality, they are checking to see if someone else witnessed the hit. Sometimes the opponent will yell at the pretender ”You’re out!” Pretender typically protests or pretends he/she doesn’t hear.
I’m not here to talk about the Pretenders. I am here to talk about the ones who are demonstrating integrity. I’ll call them the Integriters. Believe it or not, I just this minute made up that word. Integriters would rather be honest than win. Integriters would rather lose fairly than win unfairly. Integriters value truth and trust more than competition. This is not to say that Integriters are less competitive than Pretenders, because they are not. I see lots of very competitive Integriters.
These young Integriters and Pretenders (I’s & P’s) might not realize it yet, but they are setting the tone for their lives, even as they play dodgeball. How do others view you? Do they view you as a person of integrity, one who can be trusted, one who is honest? Do you know it’s a documented fact that integrity and trust characteristics take the longest to establish in our relationships, and are the quickest to be torn down? An I can become a P overnight, but never the other way around.
There’s great reasons to be an Integriter. Even in dodgeball. Over time, even though its unspoken, players know who is an Integriter and who is a Pretender. No one ever yells at an Integriter that he/she is out. Maybe it’s a close call, but the Integriter isn’t questioned because everyone knows if he/she had gotten hit, they’d call themselves out. But, oh, does it go way beyond dodgeball. A person of integrity is more likely to succeed in their relationships, thus succeed in their overall life. Lack of trust kills relationships. Trust brings relationships to life. Right or wrong, I have observed these kids and formed personal opinions about them. Ten years from now if I happen to interview one of them for a job or, lets make the stakes even higher, one of them wants to have my daughters hand in marriage — I may not remember how they played dodgeball, but I will have a feeling about whether this person is overall the Real Deal, or not so much, and it may have all boiled down to how they played dodgeball.
Awkward transition here, but not really. Do you know what I love about the Bible? It’s teaching is so right on and relevant to living in our world today. Integrity is huge, right?! One of my favorite verses in the Bible about integrity is James 5:12 which states “…. let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’, and your ‘No’ be ‘No’…” Don’t compromise.
By the way, in case anyone from youth group reads this, the reason I thought to post this today is because we had about 25-30 kids playing dodgeball last night and I was taken aback by how many Integriters I saw. It was awesome.
(We’ll call this post IF I WAS A MENTOR – Installment III)
uring the time that I was at the hospital with her, here are just a few of the texts I received from SweetGuy: