The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out (Proverbs 10:9).

Have you ever read the Edgar Allen Poe's story, "The Tell-Tale Heart?"  It's one of my all-time favorite short stories.  In the story, the narrator has just committed the perfect crime:  murdering an old man with whom he lived, who he claims to have been posessed with the eye of a vulture, and expertly concealing his body beneath the floorboards of their home.  A neighbor heard screams in the night, however, and thus the police were summoned to the scene of the crime.  They begin to question the narrator, who explains that the screams had been his own as he awoke from a nightmare -- but then he invites them to sit down and talk in the very room beneath which the old man's remains are buried.  As the murderer-narrator talks with the police, he seems to be successfully convincing them of his innocence; however, he starts to hear the sound of a beating heart, coming from the floorboards beneath them.  For awhile, he's able to ignore the sound which he figures must be a figment of his own imagination, seeing how the police seem to register no sign of hearing any such heart-beat.  But over the course of their conversation, the heart-beat grows louder and louder until the narrator confesses to his crime and tears up the floorboards beneath their chairs to reveal the remains of the old man.

The story is an excellent study in psychopathy, criminality, guilt, and confession -- and it's extremely well-written.  Yet I think it also helps to demonstrate the message of Proverbs 10:9, where it says, "The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out."

This Proverb is true on so many levels -- but I think that "The Tell-Tale Heart" helps us to see that it's true purely on the personal level.  That is:  even if someone like me could get away with committing "the perfect crime," I couldn't let myself get away with it because the crime would haunt me until it came leaking out for others to see, as well.  I would be haunted by the sounds of the tell-tale heart, hidden beneath the floorboards of my life, until I pried open the concealed evidence for everyone else to see.  "The Tell-Tale Heart" brilliantly demonstrates the way that we become disoriented when we take crooked paths -- with our own perception of reality also becoming crooked.  And one way or another, we will be found out.  We'll either be caught by others, confess our guilt of our own accord, or go insane by trying to conceal it.

The only way to avoid such a downfall is to walk with integrity.  When we seek to live righteously and honestly -- freely confessing our inevitable mistakes, whenever needed -- we are secure.  We don't have to worry about hearts beating beneath the floorboards, when we live with integrity.  True, such a life of integrity may not always make for the most interesting short fiction -- nowhere near as compelling a story as Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart" -- but it's a lot more satisfying lifestyle to experience.