Ooh yeah, the bowl games are coming, the bowl games are coming! I love football, and this time of year makes for some great couch time. And the big game between Florida State and Auburn will really be a doozy. I can’t wait to watch Jameis Winston tear up the Auburn Tigers. I mean that guy is good: he was the A.P. Player of the Year, Sporting News Player of the Year, ACC Player of the Year, the Walter Camp Award Winner, and he won the Heisman. But with that being said, I can hear some of you wet-blankets out there saying: “Yeah, but…isn’t his name tied to something about a woman, an assault, & an investigation for r…..” Hey, relax, did I mention he won the Heisman?
“Yeah, but…” is a phrase that I think sadly is becoming all too common these days. Success trumps everything, including righteousness, goodness, humility and truth. “Yeah, but…” is the sad reality in a country where people are intoxicated with celebrity culture, easy money & our love of self.
Just listen to a movie review that came out in the Business Insider discussing Martin Scorsese’s new Blockbuster “The Wolf of Wall Street”:
“Credit Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Belfort, for keeping the high-octane, drug-filled movie entertaining for three hours (the longest Scorsese film by about 60 seconds). But my one major gripe was pretty simple: Jordan Belfort defrauded a lot of people—and by the nature of his penny stock transgressions, many low-income people—out of a ton of money. He then used that money, as one does, on cocaine, hookers, cars, and yachts. It may be great cinema to document his exploits, but there’s a fine line between satirizing Wall Street’s excess and celebrating Belfort’s lifestyle.”
In other words: “YEAH, it was a great movie, you gotta go see it, BUT too bad people in real life were destroyed by this guy.” What is worse, Jordan Belfort is still making a fortune from people who want to learn the sales techniques that he used to steal from people. And secretly many want to make the “Big Money” so they too can have the opportunity to drown themselves in the same wretched activities Belfort enjoyed. (By the way, if you didn’t know it, those activities contributed to the lashings, beatings and nail prints delivered to the perfect man Jesus Christ. “Yeah, but…it is fun.)
Yeah, but… is killing our world. “Yeah, the politicians on both sides of the aisle are so compelling and persuasive, but they do tell little white lies every now and again.” “Yeah, Joseph Stalin not only ruled all of Russia for 30 some years and the Eastern European nations around him, but he did have to kill some people to get there. A meager 30 million people is worth the price for power, isn’t it?” Yeah, but……
Sometimes you do run into people that have the “Yeah” without the “But.” They are a rarity because usually, they are not well known, famous, or rich. Having no “but” takes sacrifice and a real desire to glorify God in your life. (Proverbs 19:1, “better to be a poor man whose walk is blameless”) And when you live like this, it may be the single biggest blessing you can ever leave your kids. I know this firsthand because when my dad died, I heard hundreds of “yeahs” and not a single “but.”
What a gift!
