Our culture has taught is to compartmentalize our lives well. We work at work, and we play at home or out. We do church on Sunday’s and maybe on Wednesday, and we allow none of these areas to overlap.

We compartmentalize our lives fully.

I want to encourage you not to do that. First of all, it is not healthy. Many of these areas must overlap, and in fact, your faith must undergird all of them.

But more importantly, compartmentalizing our lives defies integrity.

Too often, we are different men in different places. We act differently when we are with our families than we do when we are with our friends, or with coworkers. And even though our different roles require different actions, we need to make sure that who we are remains the same in each of these.

Determine to be a man of integrity no matter where you are, and then stick to it.

Unfortunately, this is not the norm in our culture. Do a Google search on the subject of compartmentalization, and you will find more than a half a million results, and most of them encourage you to separate the various parts of your life. While some of the may be necessary, I think it is overwhelmingly unhealthy for us to do.

If you live and work in a situation that calls for you to change who you are, according to where you are, you need to find a way out of that situation. Determine to be a man of integrity, no matter what.

Because, quite simply, your kids will learn that from you, and they will live without integrity. But if they see us striving to be men of strong character, they will learn that as well.

Be men of character, dads. Be men of integrity. No matter where you are.

Be deliberate, Dad!

How do you live with integrity no matter where you are? What have you found to be helpful? You can leave your thoughts in the comments by clicking here.