Well, welcome back everyone.

I wish I could listen in on some of the conversations that are going on in your groups. In the past, we've talked about a pretty radical concept. Integrity-based honour is character-based, and therefore it is given and not earned. When honour moves from being a reward to being a gift, it becomes a source of immense influence and inspiration.

Now, on the chart we looked at in our last session, we read about how honour is proactive, while respect is reactive. Honour is transformational.

Now, over the years of leadership, I've discovered that as I instilled the culture of honour in our team, the productivity, the work satisfaction, and the creativity went up. And not surprisingly, honour unified us. There is nothing like working in an environment shaped by goodwill towards each other. And a single gram of honour is a hundred times more potent than a kilogram of protocol.

In the next few sessions, we're going to explore the story of one of the most difficult relationships in history: the relationship between King Saul and David.

Now, it ranks among the most toxic and unstable relationships of all time. How did David survive, let alone serve such a dysfunctional, irrational tyrant king? Well, we're going to see how integrity-based honour empowered David to do just that.

Honour has a powerful influence. I want to camp on that thought: power of influence and how honour makes such a difference.

I don't know if you've heard the story of Johnny Lingo and his eight-cow wife. It's a true story. Johnny Lingo was a young man who lived on the island of sort of bandy in the South Pacific. He was one of the brightest, strongest and richest men on the island. But people shook their heads and smiled when they thought about one of Johnny's deals:

It was customary on the islands for a man to buy his wife from her father and pay a bridal price, in this culture in cows. Two or three cows bought an average wife, four or five purchased a highly satisfactory one. Yet, for some reason, Johnny paid the unheard-of price of eight cows for his wife.

Now, she was not attractive by any standard. One fellow explained it would have been kindness to call her plain. She was skinny. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked down. And when Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for her, it was an unheard of price. Everyone figured Sarita's father had duped Johnny, and that's why the islanders smiled when they discussed the deal. Patricia McGreir met Johnny, and had a chance to ask him about this eight-cow purchase. She assumed that Johnny had done it because of his reputation or pride. That is, until she saw Sarita. McGreir wrote, "She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin, the sparkle of her eyes, all felt a pride that no one could deny.' Sarita was not the plain girl that McGrier had expected, and the explanation lay with Johnny Lingo. Johnny said, "Do you think that it means nothing to a woman, this bride price that is paid? What does it mean when a woman knows that her husband has settled for the lowest price possible?"

Later on, when women talk in their sharing with one another, one might say, "Well, my husband paid four cows for me." And another one would, with pride, say, "Well mine paid five." And another might hang their head and say, "Well mine paid only two or three cows." Johnny would not allow this to happen to Sarita. He wanted Sarita to be happy, yes, but he wanted more than that.

Many things can change a woman. Things that happen in the inside, the things that happen outside. But the thing that matters most is how she sees herself. And he believed that his Sarita was worth so much. He wanted her to know how much she was worth. He wanted an eight-cow wife. And because Johnny considered Sarita to be worth eight cows, she began to see herself as an eight-cow woman. Before Johnny entered her life, Sarita was shy, clean, self-conscious. But after he placed such incredible value upon her, she transformed into a confident, attractive woman who knew that her husband saw her worth more than any other woman on the island.

Now, dishonour always devalues people. Dishonour provokes people to feel the way Sarita felt about herself before she met Johnny. That constant repetition of snide words, abuse, mistreatment, peer pressure, or dishonour can create such a low self-worth. But honour will turn it all around.

My father was a pastor for 55 years, and he passed away a few years ago; and among the things I have of his are fishing hooks and tools, but I also have this book. It's the Bible he used in studying and preaching, and it contains some handwritten notes and passages that he underlined that inspired him.

So let me ask you: how much is this Bible worth? Well, that depends on who sets the value. How much do you think this Bible is worth to me? The value of this book can't be calculated in your head, it's calculated in my heart. Honour sets a value from the heart with dignity.