Yes mean "Yes"!

“Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.” ( Matthew 5:33-37 NASB)

I am really struggling with this passage this week.

I have taken great pride in my Alma Mater for a good number of years, for doing things the right way! The people in leadership have been held accountable, as is our Christian tradition, and was a hallmark of our University’s Founder. Over the last several years we have made great strides with our athletic programs, of which I have been pleased and proud, maybe to a fault.

Our school has always been careful to hire sincere Christians, and they have done a great job. And the results show in the quality of young men and women who have graduated and shown the world their sincere faith. The end result of all of this has been I have begun to advocate for young men and women in my home area to consider attending my school for both its academics and its commitment to Christian values in its athletics.

Then this week it seems that one of our program leaders has decided that opportunities and perhaps money is more important than the promise he made to our school and student athletes last spring when he signed an eight year extension and promised the players and university he would be there for them.

The problem is I am not sure who I am mad at. I am not sure I am mad at: the coach, for leaving and breaking his word; the administration, for allowing him to negotiate with other schools instead of holding him to his contract; or me, for getting this worked up about “that’s the way things work in college athletics.”

I am sure that I am not perfect, and as much as I have tried in the past to be a man of my word, I have fallen woefully short. As a person, spouse, parent, employee, boss, business owner, and pastor; I failed to live up to this Christian standard. As a result, As I have journeyed along the road toward Christian maturity, it has become more and more important to have my “yes” be “yes” and my “no” be “no”.

Maybe this is all an issue because the decision someone else has made, has impacted the level of my worth in words; because now, it seems that I have been leading young people and their parents astray as to the quality of the school I graduated from.

What do you think I should do about it?

Or, is it all just an overblown case that I should just dump in the scrap heap of “does it really matter in the big scheme of things?”