When no one is looking

"Life is short. Have an affair."

The tagline of website Ashley Madison is invitational, titillating, and wrong. Recently more than 32 million realized just how wrong when their private information was leaked even though the website prominently posted they were a "100% discreet service."

The lives of millions more connected to those website users have been devastated. The betrayal felt by spouses, children, friends, and coworkers has been accompanied by divorce, job loss, and suicide. The additional erosion of trust in society is hard to quantify. What happens when the majority of the society in which we live believes and responds to the belief that you cannot trust anyone? What does that do to families, friends, and business practices?

Troy Hunt, a security researcher and proprietor of Have I Been Pwned, posted several emails he received from those grasping for a way to cope with their discovery. One email said, "I love her very much and don't want to lose her, I am deeply worried that she will leave and greatly impact my life."

Christi Gibson found her husband dead of suicide in their home on Aug. 24. In his note, says his wife, he expressed profound remorse. "What we know about him," she told CNN, "is that he poured his life into other people, and he offered grace and mercy and forgiveness to everyone else, but somehow he couldn't extend that to himself."

Leonard Pitts "Elegy for an Ashley Madison suicide" wrote, "Ashley Madison is founded upon the implicit idea that you can have betrayal without consequence. The family of the late John Gibson would beg to differ... . Yet the company continues to broadly enable betrayal and in the process, to destroy families in a hundred different ways quieter and less tragic than suicide, but ultimately just as effective."

"In the path of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death," is not talking about smugness or how to be better than someone else. That Proverb is the recipe for avoiding the darkness, the guilt, the pain, and the shame those who subscribed to Ashley Madison have experienced. Numbers 32 says, "be sure your sin will find you out." It may take years or even a lifetime. When what was done in darkness is exposed to light, however, the pain will be greater than the anticipated or real pleasure.

Every person sailing through life would do well to remember how important the integrity of the hull is. The hull is that part of the ship which is out of sight below the waterline. Fissures increase under the pressure of time and storms. The integrity of a ship refers to "a sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition." In life it refers to what we do when no one is looking.

Arriving at our desired destination is not a big deal when no problems are experienced on the journey. The recipe for a calm pleasurable journey terminating at the desired port of call is to practice "righteousness" or doing the right thing even when no one can see. The Bible details what righteousness is in length, but summarizes it in Matthew 22 with a call to love God with everything you are and love your neighbor as much as you do yourself. Who said anything about easy?

Integrity calls for discipline. Winners know short-term sacrifices have to be made. Be a winner. Stephen Covey said, "Begin with the end in mind."

Between now and eternity do the next right thing, especially when no one is looking.

-- Dr. Randy Rowlan is pastor of First United Methodist Church in Siloam Springs. The opinions expressed are those of the author.