Heartfelt Conversations: Faith, Space, and Purpose

Welcome to Truth Talk Live. All right, let's talk. A daily program powered by the Truth Network. This is kind of a great thing and I'll tell you why. Where pop culture, current events, and theology all come together. Speak your mind. And now here's today's Truth Talk Live host. Welcome to Truth Talk Live.

This is Peter Burger. Glad to have the opportunity to be with you today and come to a beautiful downtown Aurora, Colorado where we have been vacationing for two months. Vacationing, I use that word with an eyebrow raised. We're still at the hospital with my wife here and she is improving but she has to have two additional procedures this week. Tomorrow will be her 91st operation. This is what happens when you get a post-op infection and so we got to stick around a little bit longer. Remind me to fire my travel agent for booking me to spend winters in Aurora.

But I'm getting to know the place and this is my third time spending two months at a stretch in Aurora because this is where she has to come from for major surgery. So it's been different. Nick was just saying before we came on the program he misses the caregiver keyboard. Normally I have the keyboard hooked up and I do that for family caregivers and I don't have a keyboard so I have to use the caregiver kazoo. I'm not going to make that what it sounds like Nick. I'll just leave it alone and walk away and nobody will get hurt. It's so much different.

Can you remember being landlocked with your car growing up? Some of those of us who are a certain age. But now we have people listening literally all over the world. The Truth broadcast into multiple places.

North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and some of the other states. But I have people that listen out here in Colorado. They stream it and listen to it.

Wherever you're listening I'd love to hear where you're listening to this program and you can give us a call. It's fascinating. I have a niece that works at NASA and I'm amazed at the technology.

I mean astounded at it. I watched the whole thing. I watched them help them get them out and they had to put them on those little to kind of do it because think about eight months in space not feeling gravity and what that must have been like. I noticed that, what's the lady's name? The one with the hair that was always sticking up.

Sunny, S-U-N-I. And I watched her wave as she got out of the capsule. And I thought how different that must feel to her after eight months of having no weight and then to lift her arm and wave. Which I thought was little things like that. They have to do a pretty extensive medical evaluation when they get back after being in space.

Zero or microgravity or whatever they call it for so long. It was just fascinating. I remember I was a very young child when everybody gathered around the set to watch the moon landing. And I know there's some people thinking it was fake. Sorry. I can't go there with you on that one.

But if you think it's fake. I was talking about Mars and he feels pretty confident to send the optimus AI robot that they've built to Mars by 2031 I think. So roughly around that time and then he feels like within 30 to 40 years we will have a colony on Mars. That's astonishing to me. Do you ever think about stuff like that?

What do you think about it? I look at that and it's just fascinating. I look up in Montana. The night sky is pretty amazing. We just look up and see all these stars.

We don't have the light pollution that so many cities do. We're way out in the middle of nowhere. And you can see by the way the star link satellites going over. You can watch that from our home.

We can see it. We're up about 6,000 feet. But it's a big sky. There's a reason they call it big sky. And you can see that and it's just fascinating. I use star link at home because it gives me high speed internet where we are which is again way out in the middle of nowhere.

We're 10 miles from a paved road. And I've been using it for about 4 years and it's just fascinating what we can do now and what is being accomplished. And watching those astronaut capsule yesterday and the whole process was just intriguing to me.

I don't know if that's where you are. I'm kind of nerdy that way. But I just look at that with nothing but incredulity. And I can't help but think about Daniel 12.4 and the end times knowledge will. And by the way the Hebrew word there for knowledge, you know what it is? Some of you will get this but the word is yada. You know yada, yada, yada. No kid, look it up. But the root word, the root Hebrew word there is yada.

So yada, yada, yada. But you think the knowledge is increasing and it is. It's stunning what has happened just in my lifetime. And then I think about though is wisdom increasing?

And it doesn't appear so does it? With all our, Billy Graham said this I don't know 50 years ago. We haven't invented any new sins.

Now we've invented more efficient ways to do them. But we haven't invented new sins. The human being is not, we're not evolving to be better people, are we? That's of this broken fallen sinful world is that we're not becoming better people. But we do have better technology. And we're going to talk some more about that when we come back.

If you want to weigh in on that I'd love to hear your thoughts. 866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH. This is Peter Rosenberg. This is Truth Talk Live.

Yada, yada, yada. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberg.

Glad to be with you. If you want to be a part of the program all you have to do is call 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. I love going to the break and I was talking about this is Peter Rosenberg. This is Peter. And then Stu Epperson comes on to the commercial. Did you hear about Peter's failures? I thought, I'm going to have to work on the moneymaker. Peter's failures.

So, no, yes. Would you like to hear about Peter's failures? Hey, I've been around a lot of doctors. A lot of doctors during my journey with Gracie.

I've estimated well over 100 now have treated her since her car wreck back in 1983. And one of the things I've always been very appreciative for is when doctors talk to me without being condescending or lecturing me. When they're able to explain to me what they're doing, what they're going to do, why they got to do it, and what we can expect. Excuse me. I can't shake this cough.

Sorry, y'all. And, you know, that's always been very meaningful to me because it helped me become a little bit more comfortable with what's going on. There's always a few of them that wanted to talk in medical. Any kind of time around doctors and hospitals and so forth, you'll recognize that there is a language all of their own. And the learning curve is a bit steep.

I went to music school, not medical school. So trying to keep up with that is a bit of a trick. Now I have, because I've spent 40 years now, four decades of it, of taking care of Gracie. And I've picked up a lot and I, you know, pretty intelligently with them, but I still always appreciate it when they bring it down to my level.

Not dumbing it down, but speaking in a way that makes sense. And meeting me where I am, as opposed to making me somehow go home and read so I could have a conversation with them. And I've known a lot of surgeons, a lot of surgeons, and I'm always grateful when they do that. Now let me ask you a question. When we talk to people about the things of God, do we meet them where they are? Or do we have terms and phrases and talk in a way that's lecturing or over their head a little bit and say things that maybe we're used to hearing?

Like, for example, let me give you an example. There can be no forgiveness without the remission of sins, shedding of blood, all those kinds of things. Well, we say that. We're very comfortable saying those things as believers. But what does that mean?

Imagine saying that to somebody who had not grown up in the church, who has no clue to what you're talking about, the blood and talking about eating his body and drinking his blood at communion. People are looking at you like, what? Do you run into that?

And what is your response? Do you explain things in a way to them to where they are to understand? I've got friends of mine who are Bible translators with Wycliffe.

I knew them many years ago in Bible college, and they are over there in Central Africa. And one of the things they've told me is the way they approach anything. And you go and you have to dwell with them.

You have to embrace them and understand where they are coming from. You don't just show up on the first day and start translating the Bible. You have to be able to understand them so that you have common points of references, so that your communication is clear.

We're still spending, like I just said in the last block, the word knowledge, the Hebrew word yada, and we're still unpacking all of Scripture from its original languages. We say it in the English and we just glibly say it, but what does it really mean? And so my question to you, have you run into this, where people are talking over your head? And they're speaking in a way that, can you just say it like a normal person?

What does that mean? And I'm a big fan of that, of asking, well, what does that even mean? And I've found a lot of Christians, well-meaning, very sincere, have scripts that they'll...

But when you challenge them on it, it comes up a little bit short. Have you ever run into that? Is that something that you've encountered? Because I don't think a lot of people...

I think there seems to be a common thing here that people say a lot of stuff, but they're not really thinking about what they're saying. And I challenge that because I've spent so much time looking at very uncomfortable things. For example, another example, people would always say, well, you just need to trust Jesus. As Gracie goes through surgery after surgery after surgery after surgery, just trust Jesus. What do you mean? Well, you know, trust Jesus. With what?

What do you mean? And that's where it stops. Brother, let me just pray for you. Do you see what that does to somebody who is going through something? You're like, what are you saying to me? Well, if you had enough faith. Really? Unpack that a little bit.

What does that look like? That's the way I would love to see us being able to engage with people, because we're going to find more and more that this common Christian vernacular that many of us have been used to is no longer the language of the land here. And you're seeing so many people who are not growing up in church who do not understand this dialogue. It is like going into a hospital for the first time and being around a bunch of surgeons and doctors and nurses and so forth, and they're all speaking a language and you're trying very hard to keep up in the middle of your distress. What does that even mean? Well, we've got to go in there and irrigate the wound. That's what's happening tomorrow to my wife. Well, what does that mean? Why?

Why are we doing this? And one of the things that her surgeons have helped me understand, what's going on here when she has a post-op infection? That's not my post-op infection with her. It's not my fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth time dealing with it.

I can keep up with it. But there are a lot of people, this is their first time. And it's incumbent on medical staff to make sure family members understand what's going on here, how much more so with the things of God.

It's to make sure we properly communicate to someone what's going on. Don't just say these phrases. Well, you just need to repent of your sins and trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior. What does that mean?

What are you talking about? Repent of my sin? What does the word repent mean?

Break it down, all the way down. And I have learned, sometimes painfully, people don't often know what you're saying. They don't often know what you mean.

And it doesn't penetrate their heart. For example, my friends over in Central Africa with Wycliffe, the common language where they are, and, excuse me, Swahili, that's a common language. Pretty much everybody in the country speaks it. But they have tribal language, the language of their heart. And that's what they're translating the scriptures into. Are we learning to speak the language of other people's hearts? Are we speaking to their heart? Think about it.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348, 7884. This is Peter Rosenberger. This is Truth Talk Live.

We'll be right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. This is Peter Rosenberger, and I am so very glad to be with you today, this afternoon, 866-348-7884. 866-348-7884. 866-34-TRUTH, if you want to be a part of the program. I love that commercial from Dr. Gary.

The love languages. Of course, most of you probably have heard of his book and everything else. I did have one time on this program, on my program, I had Dr. Chapman on my program for caregivers, but then I had singer-songwriter Gary Chapman call in, and I introduced them together. I said, Gary Chapman? Meet Gary Chapman. And Gary Chapman, the singer, who's very funny, told Dr. Chapman, he said, you know, I've opened up a lot of your mail.

And I thought that was pretty funny. But I love what he's talking about with the love language. We see the value of this in our relationships, for example, in our marriages. But do we understand that that principle applies to virtually everyone we meet, to everyone we meet, of being understood and speaking in a way that they understand.

And the only way that's going to happen is if you pay attention and if you engage. And I'll give you an example. I took an Uber ride to a place here in Aurora, and the guy that was driving me was from Jamaica. And we got to talking a little bit, because I always like to find out where people are from and, you know, things about them. And he was really struggling with some things. And I was able to show him some things in Scripture in a way that made sense to him. And I put aside the God talk. I put aside the Christianese and just talked to him about just life. And he said, nobody's ever said anything like this to me before. And for that, I'm sorry.

I wish they had of. But I was grateful that I had an opportunity just to talk with the guy. And I prayed with him right there in the Uber ride. I don't know if he gave me a good rating. I gave him one. And, you know, but I didn't feel this need to read to him from a script. Just talking to him.

How are you doing? And I find that, you know, Thoreau said that all men lead lives of quiet desperation. And I find that to be true on a regular basis. I've run into so many different people here in this environment, this intense place of suffering.

And maybe that's why this is so heavy on my mind because I see it every single day. I see nurses showing up to work, doctors and so forth. And it's a very high stress world to be in a hospital. I don't know if you've spent a lot of time here, but hospitals have a way of forcing some very honest conversation. And I rode up the elevator with a man and he was over there.

It's kind of in the corners. I got in and you could see he was a bit haggard. And he's African-American. I'm white.

We're just two guys. Alone in the elevator for just a couple of minutes. And I said, how are you doing? And he said, I'm here with my boy. I said, what's going on? He said, well, he's having a lot of seizures.

He's not in good shape. And I just reached over, put my hand on the shoulder and I just hugged him. And I said, you know, we just talked for a few moments, just dad to dad, you know, and caregiver to caregiver. How when you get into a hospital situation, when you're dealing with life altering, painful realities, the things that divide us really become very unimportant. And I've seen that over and over and over again.

And are we prepared at a moment's notice to. In a way that can be understood, I remember when Gracie and I were on The Today Show some years ago. And the night before we left to go to New York, I washed her feet. And it sounds more spiritual than it really is because she wasn't wearing them at the time. She's a bilateral amputee, both legs. So she has prosthetic feet. So I wash them in the kitchen sink with Comet and a brush, not quite as spiritual and as holy as what happened in the scriptures.

I was washing them up because they do get dirty. And then on the bottom of her foot with a Sharpie, I wrote John 3 16. And I told her, with the gospel of peace, you're ready at a moment's notice. And, you know, I know that's kind of a silly thing to say, but but I meant it to. Are we ready at a moment's notice to talk to people who are hurting to to see and recognize how difficult.

For so many people, and I see I see the there's a lot of people stay at the hotel where I am, who are here because of the Children's Hospital and so forth, that it's all right here in this complex. And there's a very painful set of circumstances. They don't need me or anybody else to come up and start just preaching at them, lecturing them or, you know, repent.

I mean, yes, we all need to repent. Is that what you lead off with when somebody has got a child that won't stop screaming? And I think there's a point of people and being ready at a moment's notice to be able to to speak the gospel with clarity into their lives. Do you find that for you? Do you find that people have done that for you? And what was that like for you?

How did that? How did you respond to that when people have done that and they've seen you in your distress? And I'm not doubting the importance of yelling out repent like John the Baptist. I'm just simply saying this is what I have witnessed with folks who are in trauma. That man in the elevator, the last thing he needed was me to yell at him, repent.

That was that was not on the list of things that would have ministered to him. And so, by the way, speaking of elevator. This is a total tangent and y'all just have to forgive me. Just be family. But do you have very good elevator etiquette? And like there's a bank of elevators at this hospital and so I ride them a lot. And I've noticed that a lot of people stand right in front of the door so that the people on the elevator can't get out. And then you've got people that are FaceTiming.

They've got it going on the speakerphone and everything else and they're continuing the conversation in the elevator just talking away. Sometimes I'll join in. Should I?

Should I do that? Is that wrong? But you know, I just wonder. I think people are so and I look around and everybody's on their phones.

I mean, it's stunning that we are so disconnected as a species. And, you know, if we could lift our eyes up a little bit from our phones, we could see people. We can see people who are hurting.

And Jesus looked out. They're white with harvest. Pray that the Lord of the harvest will raise up workers. Do you want to be one of those? I do. I do. And I'm not waiting for us to get out of the hospital before I do that. I'm doing it right now.

Me. Lots of somebodies have done that for me. And it would be a poor steward and a poor show of gratitude for me not to offer in kind. And to see others in their distress and speak to them in a way that they can understand. You know, that's one of the reasons we launched the prosthetic ministry, the prosthetic limb ministry. It's the language of legs. You know, when we go over to West Africa and put legs on folks, and this is Gracie's vision after giving up her legs. And a guy that's putting a leg on your little girl.

And I noticed, you know, because there was a lot, you know, when you have, we treat people of all kinds of faith or no faith. And whatever differences we had, those things vanish when you're putting a leg on somebody and saying, rise and walk. Stand up. Walk. And they do.

And it's such an amazing thing that Gracie envisioned. You can be a part of that, by the way. And we welcome you to do that. There's several ways. One of them is you can, if you know somebody who's got a prosthetic limb, they don't know what to do with.

I mean, a family member who passed away or a kid who's outgrown it, we'll take it. You can go out to the website for the prosthetic limb ministry, standingwithhope.com. And you can see where you can donate a used limb. It goes to a prison in Arizona where inmates will volunteer to disassemble that thing down to every usable part.

We can recycle it, which is kind of cool. And the foot, the knee, the pylon, the screw, the adapter, these inmates are at a correctional facility run by a group out of Nashville called Core Civic. We've been working with them for 14 years. We've recycled over a thousand legs now.

And it's extraordinary. It's in a faith-based program where these guys volunteer so that we can take those parts and send them over. That's one way you can contribute to it. Another way is you help us do it. We're doing 25 and 25.

This is for the year 2025, 25 a month. You can help us give the gift that keeps on walking and speak the language of legs. It's standingwithhope.com. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com Welcome back to Truth Talk Live.

Glad to be with you. 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884, if you want to be a part of the program. Hey, if you go out to my website, PeterRosenberger.com, that's R-O-S-E-N-B-E-R-G-E-R, it's Irish, on my mother's side.

Peter Rose. Got a link to my Substack page. And I have a ton of things I put out there on our podcast and everything else. My podcast has, I think, getting close to 900 something episodes or so now.

We've got so much out there for family caregivers, but I do more than just that, even though that is the main thrust of what I do to talk to family caregivers. But I got an article out there on my Substack page I'd love for you to check out and you can get access to all the things I put out there. But it's called The Planet Will Live, Will You. The Planet Will Live, Will You. And I was just watching them right now and they were referencing Al Gore saying that by the year 2014, you know, everything will be gone, the seas will rise, the ice caps will melt and everything else.

And we've been doing that. So I thought I'd share just the opening bit of this and see if it resonates with you. Sustainability is the corporate buzzword of the last several decades. Companies plot to save the planet, yet people burn out faster than a Disney remake. Consumed by stress, anxiety and exhaustion, we obsess over reducing our carbon footprint, but forget how to plant our own feet, how to stand firm and move forward in a world that seems designed to knock us down.

And this was brought on because I've been lately meeting with a lot of Gen Y and Gen Z individuals who are at crossroads in their life. And they're not asking how to make money, which is good not to ask me of that because I couldn't tell them how to make money, but they're asking how do we keep going? This is what they ask me personally, not like how does somebody, they ask me, how do you, what sustains you in this four decades journey that you and Gracie have?

Tomorrow she, no kidding, is having her 91st surgery, 9-1. What sustains us? And this is what they're asking me. They feel like they're drowning and they're buried in debt. We're almost $40 trillion in debt in our country. And students are, they're hooked into getting student loans and all these big debts and these careers, these majors they have in college that are just ridiculous and they're useless. And they're riddled with debt and anxiety and uncertainty and we've drilled into them the importance of saving everything but themselves. They live in the fear of the future's wreckage instead of realizing that they have the tools to build what they do. And for years, celebrities in cartoons, which are often interchangeable by the way, have warned them that the seas will rise, the ice caps will melt, and the world will end in a decade.

I remember those commercials in the 1970s. Same fear, different. And sadly, too many know Captain Planet and not enough know Captain Obvious. And you can read this at my Substack page.

Go to PeterRosenberger.com and the Substack page is right there in the right hand corner just, if you're on the desktop, you're on the mobile, you'll see the link to it. And check it out. See what you think. But when I say Captain Obvious, here's the thing about climate change which is billed as an existential threat to humanity, okay? The polar ice caps are going to melt and the seas will rise. Remember, we've been told this now for 40 plus years. It used to be called global warming.

And then we had a couple of pretty rough winters, so they changed it to climate change. And remember Biden got up there and he would say it's an existential threat. Obama said it's an existential threat.

Al Gore said it's an existential threat. Did you know the waterfront property? That's where they live. They have a big home there on the water there in Martha's Vineyard.

I guess he wasn't terribly worried about the seas rising, was he? I used to drive by Al Gore's home when he lived in Tennessee. Big old huge home. And a lot of lights on. I mean, this is a massive home.

A lot of lights on. And these guys have peddled this type of fear for a very long time, but their lifestyle doesn't reflect it. It doesn't reflect the fear. Otherwise, all of these people promoting this would stop flying around in private jets and living on the water and yada, yada, yada. Go back to yada, which I learned today is the Hebrew word for knowledge.

Yada, yada, yada. And they keep living this opulent lifestyle, but they want everybody else to change. And it's soured. You're going to start seeing more and more stories about this kind of thing because they kept predicting by this time it'd be all over.

And we'd be all under water. And it's soured in people's minds. They don't like it.

They've been lied to. And you look at the things that have been done in the name of climate change and people realize time and truth are on the same side. Now, I'm not talking about being poor stewards of the environment because that's into the garden and to take care of this and have dominion over this and be responsible.

Take care of the place. But I'm also looking at the lives going on in order to achieve power. And, you know, when these celebrities stop buying oceanfront homes, we'll know they're serious. And in private jets, we'll know they're serious.

Until then, they're cartoons and should be treated as such. Now, why am I telling you all this? Well, first off, because it just rankles me when I see this. But the other thing is we put so much fear into young people and they're aimless and they don't know what to do. What's the point?

What's the point of being productive if it's all going to end in a few years? You see that? And I want people to understand that every day is a gift. I was watching Gracie in a hospital two days ago. He and his wife came by to pray over Gracie.

They're just really sweet people. And Gracie prayed and she said, Lord, I can't praise you when I'm dead. From the grave, she was echoing, I know that to be absent in the body is present with the Lord, but she was echoing what Gracie said, you know, I can't praise you from Sheol. I can't praise you from the grave. Lord, I want to praise you here on this earth. And I'm asking for you to equip me to do so.

And then she's saying that the day before going in for her 90th surgery. We've got to live today. We live in the moment of today and knowing that every day is precious and we're building something for the kingdom.

And if we're not teaching our young people how to do this, if we're not equipping them to do it, then what are we equipping them to do? If we're not equipping ourselves to do this and say, you know, I have purpose today. I'm not waiting for Gracie to get out of the hospital before I work and be productive. I'm doing this show while she's in the hospital. I've written my next book while she's in the hospital. I sit there, you know, they've got a little desk thing they have attached to the sofa there in her room and I just write.

I've written approximately 40,000 words. I'm not waiting. I have work to do today, have work that is meaningful work to do. Kingdom focused work, providing for her, taking care of her, and then writing down what I'm learning so that I can share it with other people. Are we being like these hypocrites who are saying the seas are going to rise and climate change and we've got to tax your business so we can do this, but they live hedonistically, hedonistically, I've got to say that properly, without any regards to virtue signaling. May we not be like that as Christians. May we not be virtue signaling and saying one thing and living a different way. May we be consistent in all that we do.

Whether we can do it from a hospital bed while we're taking care of somebody in a hospital. Are we kingdom minded? Are we lifting our eyes up and seeing a higher view of God? Or are we just enjoying life and just playing at it?

That's what I talked about earlier in the program. We're talking about just this God talk and this Christian ease. Do we spout it? Or do we live it? Do we pontificate and opine it? Or do we infuse it into the lives, infusing it into the lives of everyone that God brings across our path who are very difficult things. Are we aware of this?

If not, I've got to ask you, why not? What's the difference then between us, if we're not doing that, what's the difference between that and these celebrities who talk about the earth is going to end by 2014? Al Gore talked about that.

The whole world should have known when Al Gore couldn't carry his home state of Tennessee, what Al Gore was all about, but that's just, that's another conversation. But he was over there bloviating about all these things, and here we are in 2025. But we, as believers, have the eternal truth of God that we're talking about. Are we being careful stewards with that and recognizing that He brings people in our lives daily, hourly, who desperately need to hear that? Hmm, something to think about.

I know it weighs heavy on me, and that's truth talk life. That is the opportunity we have as believers. This is Peter Rosenberger. I'm so glad to be able to spend time with you. Thank you so much for the opportunity. PeterRosenberger.com. Check out that article on Substack and all the other things we have. We'll see you next time.