Latest / Beliefs, Ballots, And BullDawgs / September 10, 2026
Transcript
- Greg: What's up and welcome back to the latest episode of Beliefs, Ballots, and Bulldogs. It is Thursday, September 10th. I'm your host, Greg Miller. And I got a question for you, dog fans. What's it gonna take Saturday for for you to actually be impressed? This past weekend was everything we had thought and hoped it would be. I jokingly told some of my friends it felt like watching an Avengers movie with all the athletes uniting as superheroes and you just start to see all the superpowers. Like, how do you tackle Jaden Riddell? Holy cow, Ellis Williams is like a last of me. He's just huge. Nate Fraser looks amazing. They all just looked like everything we had heard all through the offseason. Very little to be ⁓ to be upset or complain about from this past week. ⁓ obviously you had a factor in the competition. You can't take a whole lot lot from it. ⁓ we beat Tennessee State 63-3. 63-3. ⁓ Gunnar Stockton completed 15 of 16 passes. ⁓ Nate Fraser touched the football four times and scored three touchdowns. Had about 660 yards on offense. And I mean, the the reaction was, yeah, okay, we we look pretty good, but you know, who did we play? Well, my question is, what do you want? What more do you need to see? ⁓ did do you need to see Gunner go 16 for 16? Should Nate have scored five touchdowns on four carries? ⁓ does Kirby need to get on the field and personally sack the quarterback or make an ins interception? That's about all that's left at this point. ⁓ and Saturday we had a matchup against Western Kentucky. It's another game that we're supposed to win. I think the spread's somewhere around 40. But I'm genuinely curious, dog fans, what would it take this Saturday to actually impress you and make you feel really good as we roll into the meatier part of the season? You know, if if Georgia wins this game Saturday, 45 to 10, we're all just gonna look at it and say, well, that's what they were supposed to do. If we win 56 to 3, well, we're all gonna look at it and go, well, Western Kentucky's terrible. They just got killed by Nevada. And if Georgia wins 70 to nothing, then somewhere somebody's gonna say, Yeah, but I really didn't like what I saw out of the second team O line in the middle of the third quarter. ⁓ you know, and again, that's a blessing. That's that's who we are now. We've been spoiled rotten. ⁓ Kirby Smart has turned us into the proverbial rich kid at Christmas who who opens the brand new PlayStation and goes, Aww, it's not the pro. and maybe look, that maybe that's the interesting thing apart Saturday, because at this point, I'm not sure in a matchup like we've had this past week or this coming week, I'm not sure the dogs can impress us. Now, They can go the other way. They can scare the heck out of us and they can absolutely give us plenty of cause for concern. Let's hope we don't see that. But that's where we are right now. You know, win by fifty, it's expected. Win by 30, and people think something's wrong. If we only win by 17 this weekend, it's time to fire everybody. Season's over, Gunner can't play, and Kirby's lost the entire program. And God help us, Saturday, if Western Kentucky scores first, Facebook and UGA Sports.com are gonna need additional servers to maintain the meltdown. So here it is. Like I said, what I want to know today is what does Georgia have to do against Western Kentucky for you to walk away Saturday evening and Saturday afternoon and say, okay, that impressed me. Is it Gunner going for four touchdowns? Is it another 60-point offensive explosion? Is it holding Western Kentucky under 100 or 150 total yards? Or, and if we're honest, have have we just reached a point where there's literally nothing we can do against a team like Western Kentucky that will be in any way meaningful for us in a positive way? I I'm starting to think that's that's just where we are. ⁓ by the way, we got a whiteout Saturday. All white uniforms, sharp, clean, white helmet, white jersey, white britches. First time George's ever gone all white. So hey, we got that going for us too. And like I already know how my fan base works. ⁓ half the fan base is gonna go, ⁓ man, those units are clean. The recruits are gonna love them. Those things are fresh. The other half, the old school is gonna go, our clothes are red and black. Where where's the silver britches? I get it. And somewhere there's a 73-year-old man named Larry who who's already furious about the wideout, and the game hadn't even started yet. So like I said, get back to the question. Drop in note in the comments, chime in, engage with me here, and just let me know what will impress you Saturday, because ⁓ apparently 63 to 3 is just not enough anymore. Today we're going to ⁓ we're gonna do something that seems so ⁓ so just absolutely natural. ⁓ We're going to talk about what happened one year ago today. And if I'm being honest, it is precisely the reason that I'm sitting here and doing this. ⁓ one year ago today, Charlie Kirk was murdered, assassinated in front of all of us. We have all seen the video. A great man, a 31-year-old man, a husband, a father, a Christian, a political activist, and a man who had built an enormous platform by intentionally going places where he knew people disagreed with him. He sat down, he took questions. And he told people concisely and very eloquently what he believed. And then somebody killed him. And now look, I'm not going to spend all day today trying to litigate every position Charlie had. I've listened to almost everything he's put out there publicly. I agree with almost all of it. To me, the man just did a beautiful and brilliant job of sitting down and telling the truth. ⁓ and unfortunately, a lot of folks these days don't like to hear the truth. ⁓ so I'm not gonna tell you that you had to agree with everything he said, because you don't. I didn't know Charlie personally, although it kind of felt like I did. ⁓ but I can tell you something with absolute certainty. His assassination, his murder, his death changed me. Something happened inside me that day, and I've thought about it a lot over the last year because I I had most of these same beliefs before the day that Charlie got killed. I believed in God, I believed in Jesus Christ, I believed that the word of God in the Bible is the truth. I believe ⁓ that right is right and wrong is wrong. I have certain beliefs about patriotism in our country. I have beliefs about my family, marriage, children, men, women, good, evil, and the truth. I got plenty of opinions, but a lot of them were safe, and they were safe because they just lived inside my head. And you know, maybe I'd talk about them with friends and people that I knew agreed with me. You know, maybe I I'd even say something in in certain rooms just to float it out there and see what the reaction was. But But trust me when I say there is a big difference between believing something privately and being willing to stand for it publicly. And a year ago today, September 10th, 2025, it forced me to confront that difference because I I watched what happened to Charlie. I it something inside of me felt like it was happening to somebody dear to me and close to me. And I just said that that's enough. I'm done sitting on the sidelines. I'm done being afraid that somebody might not like what I believe. I'm done worrying that somebody might unfollow me or worrying that somebody might have different opinions than me. And frankly, I am done keeping my faith in the safe little compartment where nobody can be offended by it. Because at some point, if you actually believe something is true, you've got to decide whether or not you're willing to stand on it. And for me, that moment was a year ago today. And look, let me be clear here. I want to be very careful. ⁓ I I'm I think very highly of Charlie Kirk. I think he was absolutely one of the best of us. ⁓ but Charlie Kirk wasn't Jesus. He he was a man. He was in fact a flawed human being, just like every one of us. My faith isn't in Charlie Kirk. My faith isn't any a political movement. My salvation is not coming from anything Charlie spoke about politically or not coming from the next election. And look, let's be real, Christianity does not require me to turn any political figure into a saint just because they believe the same way I do. But God uses moments. He always has used moments. And he uses people and circumstances to wake the rest of us up. Charlie's death woke something up inside of me, not hatred. And I prayed against it. I don't want to be filled with anything negative, not hate, not revenge, not that sense of we have to destroy the people who disagreed with us. That would betray the very gospel that I'm claiming to defend. What woke in me was a sense of conviction. The realization that I had been given a voice, but I wasn't using it. And look, maybe this that's where this episode becomes about you. Maybe you're doing the same thing. Maybe you you believe things, but you won't come out and say them. Maybe you're afraid of what your friends will think. Maybe you're afraid of what your coworkers will think. Or maybe you're afraid that somebody in their family or somebody close to you will just roll their eyes because of your beliefs. Maybe you're afraid somebody will call you judgmental or backwards or intolerant. stupid or too religious, too conservative, or whatever word they're using to describe us this week. And look, I'm not telling you to become some arrogant butthole and just be a prick. Please don't. The world's got plenty of those. I'm not telling you to go online every morning and and look for somebody to fight because they're they're wrong about the the the scripture, wrong about how they're living their life. I'm not telling you that being obnoxious and being loud is the same thing as being courageous. It isn't. What I'm asking you is something much, much simpler. Have you become so afraid of offending people that you're willing to hide what you believe to be true? Those are different things. Jesus has something to say about that for us. In Matthew chapter five, Jesus says, You are the light of the world. And then he says something that that's kind of lighthearted and almost humorous in some ways, because he says, Nobody lights a lamp and then puts a basket over it. Why would you do that? The entire purpose of the light is to shine. And Jesus tells us, let your light shine before others, not hide, not blend in, not well, believe it privately so that nobody gets too uncomfortable. Shine. And and I started asking myself, have I put the basket over my light? And look, my light's not overly bright to begin with. I don't need to do anything to dim it. I believe these things. But do people know that I believe them? I profess that Jesus is the Lord, but has actually has that actually changed the way that I choose to live publicly? Because Christianity was never meant to be a private hobby. Jesus never once said, believe whatever you want quietly and make sure nobody notices. What he said was, follow him. And sometimes following him, that means somebody may not like where you're going. Gotta deal with that. Second Timothy chapter 1, verse 7 tells us, For God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. And that next verse matters because Paul tells Timothy. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord. Do not be ashamed. That's the challenge. Because fear has a thousand disguises. And sometimes fear sounds like, well, you know, I'm just trying to keep the peace. Sometimes fear feels like, well, you know, this just in the right place or the right time. And sometimes fear just makes it, well, you I just don't feel like getting political right now. And then sometimes we just choose to think, well, they already know what I believe, so I don't need to put it out there. Maybe. But sometimes. If we're being completely honest, we're scared. We're scared of rejection. We're scared of criticism, scared of losing friends, scared of being misunderstood, scared of somebody digging through our past, scared that if we stand up, somebody might take a shot at us. Maybe not literally, but socially, professionally, personally. And I eventually had to ask myself, how much of my silence is due to wisdom and how much of it is due to fear? Can't lie, that question bothered me a lot. Still does. Joshua chapter 1, verse 9 tells us, be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. God doesn't tell Joshua that there's nothing scary ahead. There was plenty. He tells him, Go anyway. That's courage. Courage doesn't mean not being afraid. Courage is saying that fear doesn't cast the final vote. I'm going to do it anyway. And frankly, that's that's what changed for me. I didn't suddenly stop caring what people thought. I'd love to tell you I did. I didn't. I I like to be liked. I I still don't enjoy being attacked. I don't particularly enjoy being misunderstood. I don't enjoy losing people that I was close to. But something became more important to me. And that's being faithful to what I believe. If God has given me a voice, I want to use it. If he's given me influence, even just the tiniest amount, I want to use it. If he has put even one person in front of me who might choose to listen, I want to tell that person what I believe to be true. And I'm going to get things wrong from time to time. It's going to happen. I'm going to say things poorly. I'm going to have to apologize. And I'm going to learn some things and have to change my mind along the way. But I refuse to allow fear to make my decisions for me anymore. Think about Peter. The night that Jesus was arrested, Peter had all the courage in the world when he was surrounded by his friends. He even told Jesus: Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you. Big words. Then a servant girl asks if he knows Jesus. And Peter folds. Three times. We all know the story. I don't know him. Why? Why did Peter fold? Why did Peter dis disavow his knowledge of Christ? He was scared. But then something happens to Peter. Jesus dies, and then he rises again. And Peter encounters the risen Christ. And the man who couldn't admit to knowing Jesus, just to a servant girl, eventually stands publicly in Jerusalem and preaches the gospel of Christ. Then in Acts 4, the authorities tell Peter and John, stop speaking about Jesus. And their response was basically, nah, can't do it. Acts chapter 4, 20, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard. Love that. We cannot shut up about the gospel. Something has happened to us. We have seen too much. We know too much. We believe too deeply. So I'm going to speak. And that's the kind of conviction I'm planning on maintaining. But look, here's here's where we as Christians can sometimes screw this up. And this is a very important thing. Standing boldly for the truth does not give us permission to in any way become hateful. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 15 tells us to speak the truth in love. I have used that verse routinely on this show and other shows that I do because the truth and love, this is this is it. Truth matters. Both of these words matter. Truth and love. Truth without love becomes cruel and harsh. Love without truth becomes total cowardice. Christian courage requires both truth and love. And sometimes this is where I have to check myself. If Charlie Kirk's assassination caused me to hate people, then I learned the wrong lesson. If it made me want revenge, and it kind of did, that's the wrong lesson. If it made me believe that everybody who disagrees with me is evil, that's the wrong lesson. Some of them are evil, but not all of them. Some of them are just misinformed. If it made me incapable of listening, and this is what Charlie was so good at listening to people, meeting them where they were and answering their questions, addressing what they brought to him. So that's that's the lesson that I learned from getting to low charge, studying Charlie and watching that is do not be willing to surrender your convictions just because the person across from you may hate them. It's different. I can, I can love you. But disagree with you completely. I can pray for you and believe that you're completely wrong. I can defend your right to speak while arguing against every single word that you're saying. I can always, no matter what, treat you as someone made in the image of God without pretending that the truth doesn't exist. And that's the standard I try to live by. And look, I will fall sometimes, I will fail sometimes, but that is the standard. Let's make no mistake, this is this is not a passive sit-back thing. The armor of God is not meant for people who choose to sit on the couch. Ephesians chapter six tells us, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Then Paul describes the armor of God, truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, the word of God. And I've always found something interesting about armor. You don't put on armor to go hide. Armor assumes you're entering a fight. Now look, Paul explicitly says that our battle isn't against flesh and blood, and that's incredibly important. The person who disagrees with you isn't your enemy. Your liberal neighbor isn't your enemy. Your conservative friend isn't your enemy. The atheist isn't the enemy. The confused kid is definitely not the enemy. People are not the enemy. But Christianity absolutely teaches that there is a spiritual battle. Between truth and deception, good and evil, light and darkness. And Christians are not called to pretend that that battle is not happening. We are told to stand, not hate, not destroy, and not dehumanize, but to stand. There's a difference. And then there's the story of Esther. Mordecai tells Esther, Who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? I keep coming back to that. And when this all happened, you know, I I reached out to a buddy of mine and David Smith and we started the Common Sense Superheroes podcast. ⁓ the day it happened to Charlie, I text him and said, Man, we were we were built to be in this moment. We were created to live through this moment, to be here for a reason. What is that reason? ⁓ and I think we all have a tendency sometimes to think, you know, somebody should do something. Somebody should speak up. Somebody should lead, stand up, somebody needs to help. Somebody needs to just tell the truth. Maybe sometimes God's looking back at you and go, Yeah. You know who that somebody is? It's you. Maybe you are the somebody. Look, trust me, it doesn't mean you're gonna get millions of followers. Maybe the audience is your children. Man, my children don't even listen. Maybe it's 10 employees or your wife and friends. Maybe it's the guys you play golf with. Maybe it's your classroom. Maybe it's your church. Maybe it's just a few of the people that follow you online. Maybe it's just one person. But what if God puts you where you are with the relationships that you have? With all the experiences that you've had for such a time as this, what are you doing with it? That's where September 10th changed for me. I stopped waiting for permission. I stopped thinking, you know, who am I to say something? Clearly I'm unqualified. And I started thinking, you know what? If God blessed me, who am I not to stand up? If I believe God is real, if I believe Jesus Christ is who he says he is, if I believe scripture is true, if I believe that families matter, if I believe that marriages matter and children matter, if I believe that good is good and evil is re evil and that both are real. If I believe that the truth matters, then why would I whisper any of it? Why would I spend my life trying desperately not to upset anybody? Look, I'm not saying I have all the answer. God knows I don't. That's one of the reasons why I do this every day is to try to keep learning. I I am trying to learn as much as I am trying to teach. But I can tell you this, I will never go back to being silent. And look, here's another thing that I've learned. I used to think that to be a leader meant you had it figured out. Boy, was I wrong about that. Leadership often just means you're willing to go first as you figure it out. You're willing to say, hey, I will take the responsibility. I will speak. I will admit when I'm wrong. I will stand up even if it costs me something. I'll apologize if I screw up. I will keep learning and I will keep trying to follow Christ. Look, and maybe there's somebody else that that stands up and finds enough courage to do this with me or do this like me. That's leadership. Leadership creates other leaders, it doesn't create followers. Leadership in this case is not saying, hey, follow me because I'm amazing. Leadership is saying, hey, I'm trying to follow Christ. Come with me. Maybe as you listen to this today, maybe you've been waiting. Maybe you've been waiting until you get smarter, until you get more confident, until you get a little more courage and you're less afraid. Maybe you're waiting until you just feel like you know the scripture better. Maybe you're waiting until your life's a little cleaner. You're waiting until nobody can criticize you. Well, if you're waiting for any of those things or all of those things, guess what? You're gonna keep waiting forever. God has always used imperfect people. Moses didn't feel qualified. Gideon didn't. didn't feel qualified. Jeremiah didn't feel qualified. Peter sure as hell wasn't qualified. And look, so maybe the question comes down, it's not about whether or not you're qualified enough. It's just about whether or not you're willing to do it. So here we are, one year later. Charlie's still not here. A wife lost her husband, children lost their father, and a lot of friends lost somebody they dearly love. No political argument should ever make us forget the human cost of what that truly means. And the people who have celebrated this are just a different kind of evil. An entire family has spent the last year living with an empty chair at the dinner table. And I pray for them today. But I also think about the millions of us that watched it happen. And I wonder how many of how many of else of you out there listening to this, how many of you were changed by that moment? Because I know I was. Not because Charlie became my savior. Look, Jesus occupies that position and nobody else will ever have it. But because watching a man die after spending his life just publicly standing for his convictions and telling the truth, it forced me to ask, What am I willing to stand for while I'm still alive? I mean, that's the question. The question is not, what would you die for? That's that's just dramatic. The harder question is, what are you willing to live for? What are you willing to be criticized for? What are you willing to lose followers for? What are you willing to have uncomfortable conversations about? What truth are you willing to tell lovingly, even when the room doesn't want to hear it? I don't know how many years I've got left, and neither do you, but I know one thing I don't want. I don't want to reach the end of my life and look backwards and realize that I spent the whole entire time just being afraid of what everybody thought about me. I get it. I I naturally struggle with that. I don't ever want to disguise I don't ever want to discover that God gave me a voice that somebody was looking for and I chose to just whisper or be quiet. I don't want to feel like he gave me opportunities and I hid from them. I don't want to believe that he put people in my life and I was too afraid to tell them what I believed or what they needed to hear. I don't want any of that. So one year ago today, something changed. I decided I was gonna do this. I was gonna speak. I was gonna put my thoughts out there. I was gonna decide to talk openly about my faith. I decided that I was gonna stand up for what I believe to be true. I'm gonna get some things wrong. I am certainly gonna piss some people off. I'm gonna be misunderstood. And some people, as hard as it is to believe, some people are not gonna like me. Okay. I finally realized though that being liked by everybody is just an absolutely terrible mission for your life. I think I'd rather be just faithful to him. I'd rather tell the truth. I'd rather stand for what's right. I'd rather try to lead when I can. I want to do it all without hatred, without cruelty, and without pretending like the people who disagree with me aren't human beings made in the image of God. My battle isn't against any of them and it isn't against any of you. The battle is against evil. But I do I refuse to pretend that there isn't a battle taking place this day. There's absolutely a current modern day battle of good and evil. There is truth and there are lies. There is good and there is evil. There is light and there is darkness. And I know which side I want to be on. So maybe today, one year after Charlie Kirk's death, the question isn't simply, what do you remember about Charlie Kirk? Maybe the better question is, what are you going to do with the life that you still have left? What do you believe? What do you stand for? What are you afraid to say? Where is God giving you influence? Who needs you to lead them? And what would happen if you finally stopped waiting for somebody else to step up and do it? You don't need another sign. You don't need permission. Maybe just maybe you have been placed exactly where you are for such a time as this. Get in your Bible. Say your prayers. Tell the truth. Love everyone. Stand up for what's right. Don't confuse hatred with courage. Don't confuse silence for kindness. And don't let fear make decisions for you. Charlie Kirk's life wasn't mine to live. Neither is yours. But God gave me this one. And however much of it I've got left, I'm not going to spend it hiding. I'm gonna stand, I'm gonna speak, I'm gonna try to lead, and when I get it wrong, I'm gonna get back up, I'm gonna open the Bible and I'm gonna try again. Because one year ago today I learned something. Eventually, we all have to stand up. Why not do it now? God bless.