Stewardship Of Our Pain

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This is Peter with you today, where we talk about all things going on in our culture, in our country, and in our churches. You have to admit it's a fascinating time to live in, isn't it? You know, I mean, you see large swaths of history where it was just rather dark.

There wasn't a whole lot going on, even though there was certainly activity going on. People lived their lives and had all types of things, but there wasn't a lot of documented history going on. And I think it's in the book of Daniel that it talks about in the end times, knowledge will increase. And I think we see that right now, and I don't know how close we are to the end times. I've said forever, don't let your eschatologist be your financial planner.

You can write that down. But we see so much stuff happening on us, and the knowledge is increasing, but I've got to ask you, is wisdom increasing? Do you feel like it is? And we're going to talk about a lot of things on this program today, but 866-34-TRUTH, if you want to weigh in, 866-34-TRUTH, that's 866-348-7884, 866-348-7884. Have you been following this conversation that is ignited on X and in a couple other places, been on a lot of interviews, the Sunday morning shows and things such as that with J.D. Vance in this interview he did last week when he referred to this Latin term, Ordo Amoris. Ordo Amoris, do you know what that means? It comes from teaching from Augustine back in the 4th century on rightly ordered love, prioritizing, who do you love first? And there are a lot of people in today's culture who think we should just go love everybody, in fact, even strangers, you know, at all costs. And some saying, no, you don't. You have some responsibility here.

And this created quite a bit of a stir because there are a lot of people that virtue signal, let's be frank, okay, well, we could be Frank or we could be Dean or Sammy or any of the Rat Pack, but for now, let's just be frank. And there are a lot of people who virtue signal and say, oh, we got to love everybody, we got to do this, we got to, and the point of this is going back to Trump's issue of America first. Is America first in our thinking? Now, why is this important? And why are we even having this conversation? Well, I think it goes back to some basic tenets of our faith and our family. What is our responsibility?

You know, Jesus said, sick, naked, hungry, thirsty, prison, stranger, but do you do that at the cost of your family? I mean, is that what you do? How do you prioritize that?

What does that look like? How long can you sustain that before you run out of money or other people's money, as Margaret Thatcher said about socialism? But sometimes we cherry pick scriptures and land on one without really evaluating it against the whole. And I think this is the part of biblical scholarship that we would serve ourselves well by being careful at doing. And is that what scripture is saying, that we, you know, abandon everybody and go do this? And there are certain scriptures that would lead you to think that sometimes, when Jesus said to that one young rich ruler, sell everything you got and give to the poor.

And, you know, another guy was invited to the banquet, he said, I can't come because I got this, this, you know, let the dead bury themselves, so forth. And I think those are important scriptures that we ought to consider. However, is that what Jesus is saying across the board, blanket across the board? It doesn't appear so, because the word of God, some people say, well, you know, the red letter words, those are the most important. Have you ever heard that? The red letter words, those are the ones that are important? I come from a background that teaches that every scripture, every word is a red letter word, because it's all the inspired, inerrant word of God.

And therefore, I'm not allowed to cherry pick, I have to see this in the whole. What about you? Do you have the same background? Do you have the same understanding?

Or do you bring a different one? And that's something I think it's important to have a conversation about. Because we can get easily pulled into all kinds of different directions if we're not anchored in something that is the definitive authority. And if it's only the red letter words, quote unquote, then what do we do about the rest of scripture? If it's only the New Testament, then what do we do about the Old Testament? If it's only the Gospels, then what do we do about Paul? You follow the train of thought there?

And again, I go back to all of scripture, from Genesis 1 to Revelation, end of Revelation, it's all of scripture. And so it takes a little bit more scholarship and time to go through and unpack these things and see it against the whole. We don't want to be drive-by theologians. You remember Rush Limbaugh used to call the journalists in this country the drive-by media? They would just drive by something, lower the window, oh I understand what's going on, report about it and move on to the next thing. Not really even understanding what's going on.

Didn't even bother to have the curiosity to get out of the car and see what's going on. That was the implication. We don't want to be drive-by theologians.

We want to look at something and ponder it and think about it and then weigh it against all of scripture. Now, most of you all know this by now, if you've listened to this program any type of time, I'm a caregiver. In fact, I'm doing this right now while in Denver and taking care of my wife who is going through a series of surgeries here to fix a problem that started back in 1983.

Do I abandon her and go take care of someone else? What is the ordo amoris, the rightly ordered love, when it comes to this? And I wrote about this in a new piece that's in the American Spectator. You can see it at my website PeterRosenberger.com and I talked about this. I think that it bears repeating that if we don't have rightly ordered love in our life, we're not going to be any good to anyone.

If I'm not helping my wife effectively, what makes me think that God would ordain me to go and stop helping her and go help someone else? That's a good question, isn't it? And so that's what's been sparked across the news and social media world and we're going to talk about that when we come back. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Truth Talk Live! 866-34-TRUTH. If you want to be on the program 866-34-TRUTH. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live! This is Peter Rosenberger. Glad that you are joining the program today. Glad to be with you. And if you want to be on the program, it is 866-34-TRUTH.

866-348-7884. By the way, my website is PeterRosenberger.com and you'll see a link to this article that I just recently wrote at the American Spectator. And I really push back on a lot of these ideas. We're talking about in the last block, ordo amoris. It's a Latin term. You know, basically the order of love.

How do you determine this? And for us as believers, it's always scripture. But now scripture seems to send out some things that make you scratch your head a little bit.

And I think that's where the scholarship responsibility falls on us. Go back and say, what is scripture saying? What is the context of this?

What's happening here? And we've got theologians weighing in on this, by the way, who are coming at this from a very progressive side. We've got conservatives, progressives. We've got Catholics. We've got Protestants. We've got it all. Everybody's clamoring in. And so I'm just asking the question, what?

What does this look like? But I do this from a caregiver standpoint. So to have that academic discussion about love and the priority of love while I'm in the hospital, taking care of my wife through her now 87th and facing her 88th operation next week. What do you think the priority of love is for me?

My son had a knee surgery yesterday. I couldn't be with him because I'm with his mother in this hospital. Who do I pick? What do I do? Do you see the dilemma?

And do you see how ridiculous it is for people to sit in a faculty lounge and have this conversation versus those who are in the trenches actually doing it? And one of the things I've learned in my four decades of being a caregiver for my wife who has severe health issues, that it does not honor God for me to abandon her and go take care of somebody else. I have a responsibility to her. It doesn't honor God for me to shirk that responsibility. And that is not what Jesus is in any way insinuating in his parables, whether it's the Good Samaritan or anything else.

That's not what he's insinuating. Because then that would be scripture in direct conflict with itself. Because what does 1 Timothy 5, 8 say?

One of that throws a monkey wrench into the whole argument, doesn't it? Do you see how important it is for us as believers to make sure we go back to the Word of God and look at it in the whole? What is God saying? He's not telling us not to help people. But there is no way I'm going to extrapolate from any of these scriptures or have any of these theologians say, Peter, you need to leave Gracie and go take care of somebody else. We know she's missing both legs.

She's got all these surgeries and she can't do it. But there's other people that need help too. You go help them.

She'll figure it out. Because that's, in a sense, what they're saying. Now, I'm not going to get into all the politics of it because I don't think that's necessarily my forte. I'm just a caregiver.

I'm just somebody who lives with this daily and has had to ask and answer this question daily for myself. And it's called, there's a biblical word that I love that we've gotten away from, quite frankly, in our culture. And it's called stewardship. You know, Adam's first job in the garden was stewardship.

Name the animals, look after the place. God brought a helper with Eve. But his first job was to take care of something that he didn't own but he had to answer for. I don't own my wife. I don't own what happened to her. I didn't do that. I didn't cause her a wreck.

I wasn't there. I didn't even know her. But she's my wife. And I have to answer to her Heavenly Father and her father, but more importantly her Heavenly Father, how I take care of her. I'm a steward.

Do you see how that changes the conversation? So what are we a steward of? As believers, for those of you who are husbands, those of you who are parents, what are we stewards of? And then I go one step further, those of you who are American citizens and we live in this land, are we a steward of this land? Are we called to exercise stewardship?

Is that a conversation we regularly have? If so, we're $36 trillion in debt. So how's that stewardship working out for America as a whole?

Doesn't sound too good, does it? Look at what we've done with this country that was founded on such amazing principles. Have we been good stewards of it? And so when J.D. Vance talked about this, he was echoing what Trump said with America First, it's not that we're going to ignore everybody else, but we're not in a position to help people if we're hurting somebody right here beside us. You can't set yourself on fire to keep somebody else warm.

All you're going to get left is ashes. You follow the train of thought. And so this is what I wrote about in this, and this is a conversation that I have regularly with myself.

I don't just have it in print and publications and so forth. I have it with myself. What is the best stewardship of me? So I could not fly back east to be with my son and be with him in this knee surgery because I need to be with his mother. So I did the next best thing. I got some family involved, and then I hired a service that I've used before when I go back there, and they help me with Gracie sometimes when I go back, and they jumped up. They were there to help him get home from the hospital and got him to physical therapy and make sure he's got everything. It's only for a couple of days, but just until he could put weight on this. And I did the next best thing.

I couldn't be there in person. I made a stewardship call because it's a better stewardship of me and the resources that God has given me, and more importantly, of caring for my wife. Now, what does that look like for a family, for a church, for a community, for a state, for a nation? Does that same principle flow all the way up?

I say that it does. I say that if we return to a place of stewardship as men, as women, as children, families, churches, communities, states, and move on up, imagine what would happen. I'm right now staying in Aurora, Colorado, right across the street from the hospital. And I got to tell you, I'm underwhelmed. I'm living here for two months, and this is where you have a lot of these gangs and so forth, and I went to a grocery store, and it's just, it's not good. It is messed up. Place is dirty, and I'm thinking, who's in charge of Aurora? Who's the mayor?

Who's in charge of the city council? I'm unimpressed. Are they content to have themselves and people live like this? Trash everywhere, security guards in every grocery store, and you've got to ask for a manager to get the detergent?

That's not good stewardship, is it? Somebody's not following Orda Amoris, and that is Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberg, and we're going to talk more about that when we come back. Don't go away.

There's more to come. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live.

This is Peter Rosenberg. Glad to have you with us. It is 866-34-TRUTH. If you want to be a part of the program, 866-348-7884. And by the way, I am doing this remotely. So if you do hear gaps in the audio, I'm asking you to be family. We're trying to work that out, but there's no protocol at the Truth Network for somebody who's doing it while across the street from the hospital after dealing with all the things that we're dealing with. So we're trying to figure this thing out. Hey, let's go to the phone lines. Mike in Ohio. Mike, tell me what's on your mind and what's on your heart. Well, what's on my heart is you've helped me to be able to talk to my son about God and, you know, and help me to trust in the Lord with all your heart. And I don't know if you remember that conversation. How so? Well, I remember I was talking about it, but refresh us again specifically.

What are you referring to? OK, my son, you know, he's been he's been wandering away from God. He really didn't. I really don't believe that he really felt like that. He I believe I didn't feel like he was getting closer to God or going towards God. I felt like he was going away from God and he I felt like he didn't need God. And because he wouldn't go to church with me, he wouldn't do this with me.

He didn't want to talk about God with me. And and so the conversation with me and you was, you know, I need to trust in the Lord and trust what I've taught him over the years and pray and which I have. And because of what you told me and I did, I got on my knees and I prayed and I told you I was going to be a really good example about it. And tonight's the night we me and my son bowl together. And then after it was about three, two weeks ago, me and my son bowl together. And and after the conversation, after bowling, we had a huge conversation about God and and how the world is just crazy.

And he starts talking to me about the craziness about the world. And God led on my heart. I really can't tell you exactly what I said to him, but I said all the right things because the Holy Spirit was with me.

And I know that's a taboo, but it's not. God was with me at that time and making me say the right things at the right time with my son. To make a long story short, me and my son hugged each other. And he realizes that he needs God and I want him to, you know, to be close to God. And at the long story short, it was just a wonderful thing that a father and a son had together. You know what I mean? And it was all because of your prayers and your willingness to do that.

Well, no, let's let's let's back up a couple of things. The good news is the Holy Spirit is always with you. Yes, the good news. The Holy Spirit is always with you.

That's a full stop after that one. So he's not more present with you in those moments or less present with you. He is always with you because he dwells in you because you belong to him. We want to get that oriented so that the other thing is if your son is struggling in wrestling with whatever he's wrestling with, with God. The other good news is you're not responsible for results. In the history of my life, I've never converted anyone. Amen.

That's not that I don't do that. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. Only God can bring you to God. That's why I don't particularly subscribe to the whole concept of seeker churches, because who is seeking after God? Well, scripture says no one. So the only people that are showing up are ones that God is drawing. And the only reason they could seek him is because he's already dwelling within them.

I mean, you can go. Don't take my word for it. Go study what Paul says in Romans. And so that's the good news for those of us who are evangelizing and sharing the gospel. We're not responsible for results. We are responsible for obedience.

And it goes back to what we were talking about in the last block. Stewardship. We're just being stewards of what we have learned. And that's all you're doing with your son. You're just being a steward of what you've learned. Son, here's my experience.

Here's what I've seen. Here's what I have become through this process. I remember one time, Mike, I was playing Drop the Needle on my other radio program. On my caregiver keyboard that I don't have hooked up today because I'm remote. But I was playing a song. You know the song.

He Touched Me. You know that song, Shirley. You know that song, Mike. Not that I mean to call you Shirley, but you know the song. And so I played it and this lady called in and she told me, oh, that's He Touched Me.

And I said, why is this song important to you? And she said probably one of the most evangelistic things I've ever heard. She said, because I used to be one way and I ain't that way no more because of Jesus. Wow. That's it right there. I used to be one way.

I'm not that way anymore. And the only explanation is Christ. That's what you're modeling for your son. And that's being a steward and testifying to what God has done in your life. And that's the great news of the gospel. Amen. And I totally agree with what you just said.

And I give you another example. I have a I go to Speedway or a convenience store every morning. And there's this cashier lady that I mean, if you look at her, you're like, oh, my gosh. I mean, she's got piercings in her in her face. She's got tattoos on her on her arms. She doesn't look very happy. She's always sad. And I go there every morning and I have always, always been real nice to her. Matter of fact, she's given me free coffee because she's the manager of the place and she's given me free coffee. And that's another story. But anyways, the other day she was telling about how she was having problems with. She just opened up to me and have problems with her boyfriend and her. And I'm like, and I said to her, I said, why?

Why are you telling me this? She says, I know you're a man of God. I can just tell you come in here every day. And I said, a man of God. I said, that's a great compliment. I appreciate that. She says, will you pray for me?

I says, yes, we'll pray right now. And there was a line about five or six people behind me. And I and everybody said a man afterwards. And it was it was amazing that I was able to do that.

And it wasn't. And again, I know the Holy Spirit, like you said, is with you always, but he's with you when you need him. And he's always with you when you need him. It's just you allow him to do the things you need to do and be bold. You know, and that was and that was another boldness that I had and boldness with my son, boldness with her. And I was just telling you about, you know, the boldness and and then not judging people of what they look like, judging people because they need God. You know, they're all children of God. And then they all need people, you know, I mean, and being doing the fruits of the Spirit.

This is how you not doing them, but getting men into your heart, because the more you learn from God, the more you get the fruits of the Spirit in your heart and then you're bubbled up and let people know about it, like your son and like people at the cash register, you know. So thank you. Well, and aren't you glad that God doesn't judge us by the way we look? Yes, amen. You know, you know, or I heard a great quote the other day. If life if life was fair, we'd all be on a cross.

Right, right. I heard that quote the other day from I can't remember who said I should have written down who said it, but I thought that was because we're always wanting to be fair. We want, you know, that's not fair God.

Well, if fairness was on the table, we'd all be executed because every one of us deserve that. And that's what we don't understand, because I don't think we understand how big a problem sin is. But once we start to see our own need for a Savior and then that Savior, we were regenerated by this because of that Savior.

Wow. All we got to do is say, hey, I used to be one way and I ain't that way no more. And then we could pray for people at the speedway with boldness and with confidence and invite other people to do it. You ever been in a restaurant and you get ready to say the blessing and the servers there and you say, hey, look, we're getting ready to bless the food. Will you join with us? Can I pray for you while we do that?

Is there anything going on in your life that I could pray for? You ever do that? I've done that before. I've done that before. That's fun. You know, it's like and they don't know what to do.

They're like, uh, uh, uh, uh. And I said, go ahead and join us. It's okay. Yeah.

And you don't want to embarrass them and put them on the spot or anything, but at the same time, why not? Right. Why not?

Why not? Yeah. Yeah. If we've, you know, and one of the things I love about president of this network, Stu Epperson, that's the way Stu is. He's just that way. I mean, you know, he's never met an opportunity.

He's never missed an opportunity just to reach into people's lives and share the gospel. Mike, thank you for the call. This is Peter Roseberry. This is Truth Talk Live. We've got to go to a break.

We'll be right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and Truth Network dot com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Roseberry. Glad to have you with us.

866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. And I wanted to do a call back to something we were talking about in the first half of the show and stewardship. It's a word that we don't really value a lot in our culture, it seems like, because we've allowed this great land to descend into madness. I think we are hopefully halting some of that. But I think that as listeners of this program and in this network, you probably know that man cannot do this on man's initiative. Only, you know, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, then I will hear from heaven and I will heal their land. We're not going to heal it ourselves. And so we have to double up on our prayers here. I don't think we can.

You know, I saw this thing the other day about J.D. Vance said that they're not hitting the brakes. They're hitting the gas on the Trump administration. He's moving fast to do a lot of these things. But I think that same mentality needs to apply to our prayer life as we pray for this country is that we are not hitting the brakes at all. And we are taking this incredibly seriously.

I also want to add a different element to stewardship. And somebody challenged me on this. See what you think of it. Stewardship of our pain. Are you are you somebody that's dealing with some pain right now, emotional or physical? I've lived with somebody now who has been in pain since Reagan's first term, not a day without it. Do you ever thought about that, being a steward of your pain, of your suffering, of your challenges?

And and I that's that's kind of a weird thing to think about. You know, in our culture, we try to rush away from pain. There's no more regular strength, pain reliever. Everything is maximum strength.

Whatever will kill the human body, back it off a little bit. That's what we want. Jerry Seinfeld said that.

That's the way we are. But if we really believe that God in his providence is involved in all of these aspects of our life, then he's already decreed. He said that Jesus said, look, you're going to have tribulation in this world. You're going to have trials. It's going to hurt. And Paul talks about perseverance and endurance.

And there's the underlying implication. What are we doing with this? Are we being good stewards of this?

Are we using this time to whine and gripe and and put our life on hold until we feel better and then get out and do something? And I don't really have to look any further for an example than my wife, who in her pain decided to do something. As an extension of what she'd learned from God. And part of that involved, she learned the redemptive work of the gospel. And then on a practical note, she learned the value of prosthetic limbs. And so she decided she was going to put prosthetic limbs on her fellow amputees and tell them about Jesus. Lift them up literally. And say to each one of them, silver and gold have I none. But such as I have, I give in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.

And they do. This morning I was working on the inventory. We've got a big shipment of prosthetics, supplies that we recycle. We collect limbs from all over the country and they go to a prison in Arizona that is run by a company out of Nashville called Core Civic. And they have a lot of faith based programs. And in these faith based programs, inmates get to participate in something that brings value to their life. I remember one time I had an inmate tell me, I've never done anything positive with my hands until I worked on this program.

I never thought about people with disabilities until I worked on this program. And these limbs come in and the inmates volunteer to help us disassemble them. And they break them down all the way to the screw level at times. And we take all those parts and we can recycle much of it, not all of it. You can't recycle the socket, for example. The socket is what the limb fits into. The amputated limb fits into that socket.

It's built around that person. And we make those on site brand new in West Africa, where we work out of the country of Ghana and the capital city of Accra. Now, we hub out of there to other places and we treat people from other countries at times. But we mostly work there in West Africa and Ghana. I got an email this morning from a guy in Ethiopia who wants us to work with them. And we're willing to sponsor patients there and work with them.

But we're not going to put a facility there because it's just being Gracie. So, you know, we're a mom and pop. And right now it's mostly pop. But we're still being stewards of what we've learned. And we're taking these used limbs from lives who had to struggle with amputation, broken lives.

And it goes to a prison where broken lives in a prison help us prepare those to ship over to Africa to put on lives that are broken over there. And we do all that. All of this is done to point to the one who is broken for us. Are we being good stewards of our pain? Sometimes we're so busy asking God to get us out of something that we fail to realize that he's meeting us in it.

And that's why we named this ministry Standing with Hope. And it's an extraordinary work that my wife envisioned. And I remember when she did it and I was like, are you sure? Because that was not on my list of things to do. And she was ardent about it.

My wife is a force of nature. Would you like to see more about it? Would you like to see some of the people that we've treated, the faces, and see how it's done and what it looks like? You can go up to standingwithhope.com.

Maybe you know somebody who has a prosthetic limb of a loved one that passed away or a child that's outgrown it. We always need pediatric parts. And we would welcome those being sent. And while you're there, look around. And then also, if you go to, you can click on there to go to my website, PeterRosenberger.com. It'll just link right off of Standing with Hope.

They're all connected. And you can see Gracie's blog that she's been doing. I've been helping her write it. She can't write very well anymore and type because of her right hand has kind of been messed up. But she dictates to me. And by the way, we've been married a long time, so she really knows how to dictate to me. And I'll just let me just testify on that one. But she's been having some ideas she wanted to share about pain and what she's learned through it.

And if you go out to there, you can see under the blog section, you can read it. And maybe you're in pain right now and this is somebody who's really lived and lives with quite a bit of challenges. But what has she learned through it? What has she experienced with it? What has God helped her understand better through this? How has she become a steward of this?

How have I done it? And this is our challenge, I believe, to be good stewards of where God has us right now. If you'll notice, Paul and Silas didn't try to escape from the prison. They were beaten. They were chained.

They were inside the inner part of the prison. And they were singing hymns and they were ready to minister to their fellow prisoners and ultimately to their jailer. How's that for being a good steward of where God has you?

That's not an easy thing. You don't hear that a lot because on a lot of Christian media, you'll hear things like, oh, you're going to get your breakthrough. God's going to get you out of this and give you this and you're going to get this. That's not what I see in scripture. What I see in scripture is he's going to sustain you. He's going to strengthen you.

His grace is sufficient for you in the midst of this. Some things aren't going to change in this side of heaven. My wife's legs are not going to grow back this side of heaven. She will get them. She will run and not grow weary.

She will walk and not grow faint. That's going to happen. But in the meantime, we trust him. Now, the question is, why do we trust him? And it always, always, always, always, always comes back to the cross. There is no other.

I need no other argument. I need no other plea, as the hymn writer said, it is enough that Jesus died. And then he died for me. And I maintain that we don't realize how big a problem sin is. And therefore, we don't appreciate how great a savior we have. Once we start understanding the magnitude of the problem, we see the magnificence of the savior more clearly. And from my smitten heart with tears, two wonders, I confess, the wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness, the hymn writer said in Beneath the Cross of Jesus. And so I'm asking you to consider that maybe whatever you're carrying right now, he's waiting to meet you in it in ways that maybe you can't really fathom right now. Anybody else tell you that?

You may scratch your head or raise an eyebrow or something. Gracie and I have been doing this for four decades. And we've seen God's hand move in ways that are staggering, staggering. To be a stewardship, even of our pain, stewardship of our pain. If you want to see more, you go out to standingwithhope.com. We'd love you to be a part of what we're doing. And again, we're always looking for donated used limbs. Please go out and take a look. Standingwithhope.com. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Truth Talk Live. We'll see you next time.