Point of View February 25, 2025 – Hour 2 : Beyond Burnout

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View. And now, your guest host for Point of View. Welcome back to Point of View. I'm Liberty McCarter sitting in for Kirby Anderson today. It's been a great show so far and I'm really excited about this next interview.

[00:00:30] When I tell you I read this book and immediately decided to buy a copy for all my friends, I'm not kidding, the book is in my Amazon cart, Beyond Burnout, Regain Your Passion and Energy. This is something that a lot of people are dealing with today and here to discuss it with us is the author of the book, Dr. Greg Jantz. Thank you so much for being with us, Dr. Jantz. Oh, good to be with you today, Liberty. It is an important topic. A lot of people can relate to this.

[00:00:58] Oh, absolutely. So let me give people a little bit of your background before we jump into the questions and I've got a lot of questions for you. Dr. Jantz is the founder of the Center, a Place of Hope in Edmonds, Washington, which was voted a top 10 facility for depression treatment in the United States. Dr. Jantz pioneered whole person care in the 1980s and is a world-renowned expert on depression, anxiety, eating disorders, technology addiction and abuse.

[00:01:26] He is an innovator in the treatment of mental health, utilizing a variety of therapies, including nutrition, sleep therapy, spiritual counseling and advanced DBT techniques. So and then again, you're the best-selling author of 40 books and a go-to media expert on these issues. So you are the one to be talking to us about this. But you mentioned that it's a big issue right now. So tell us how prevalent is burnout in the United States?

[00:01:54] Well, burnout is kind of a funny question or a funny word because it can mean different things to different people. It's really just an umbrella term that says, I am over the edge. I've been chronically stressed out, but I keep going. You know, all of it, we get stressed. We just keep going. We push ourselves. We push ourselves physically and emotionally.

[00:02:16] But then one day, one day we hit the wall and you try to get up in the morning and you go, oh, man, it takes energy just to breathe. I'm not functioning. That's burnout. You've hit the wall. And also it affects everything. You feel at times unlovable. You feel like, what's wrong with me? You feel irritable. You feel depressed.

[00:02:44] I mean, burnout is serious, no fun. And I talk about this passionately because I've been there. Yeah, tell us a bit about your journey. I know what it's like to hit the wall. And, you know, this is my 40th year. I'm the founder of the Center, A Place of Hope. And we work with people from all over the country who come in, anxiety, depression, burnout, addiction.

[00:03:10] But in 1989, so it's been a little while, I hit the wall. And I was the guy that tried to crawl out of bed and realize, wow, it takes energy just to breathe. I'm not doing well. And I had good intentions. I was a counselor. I wanted to help people.

[00:03:36] I was excited about the work we were doing and the uniqueness of what we were doing. And I didn't have good boundaries. So I burned out. I said yes at times where I needed to say no. I'm sorry. That won't work. And I physically crashed, emotionally crashed.

[00:03:54] And I think it took, and spiritually, I think my family would probably remember that it took a year plus just to rebuild my health. And somewhere, Liberty, I have some before pictures and I have my after. That's me now.

[00:04:18] And not long ago, my wife said to me, she goes, you look so much better now than you did then. And that was a long time ago. Wow. So it does affect us so much in so many ways, as you discuss in the book. But just to give people an idea, 70% of workers experienced burnout over the previous year. 38% of pastors reported considering quitting due to fatigue and burnout.

[00:04:47] If anybody's in ministry, they can probably relate with that a little bit. 84% of Gen Zers and 74% of millennials, that's my generation, report burnout. So if someone's like, you've kind of given us an overview. But if someone's thinking, wow, I think maybe that really is me. What are some of the key symptoms that they need to look for in themselves? Well, I mentioned a few. You probably have disruptive sleep.

[00:05:15] And probably when you sleep, you get up and you go, I don't really feel rested. It's like sleep is no longer restorative. You may notice this whole thing of being irritable. I don't have energy to cope with much. People bother me and I run out of whatever energy I had. You probably feel a lot of anxiety. And you probably have trouble regulating appetite.

[00:05:45] Either I want to eat all the time or I'm still stressed out, I'm not eating at all. Another symptom could be I'm drinking 10 cups of coffee a day or energy drinks and I'm not drinking any water. Hmm. Yeah. I will not comment personally on any of my own caffeine habits, but we had a couple minutes before the break. And, of course, we'll keep talking about this.

[00:06:13] But why do you think burnout seems to be such a big problem right now? It seems like it's getting worse, more prevalent anyway. So, you know, one of the things I think that's happened is we have been we came through COVID five years now and people haven't recovered. There's the financial stress and also culturally they don't know what to trust.

[00:06:43] So many people feel lied to. They don't know what to believe in the news. And so there's a general distrust. We also have our 12 to 17-year-olds who haven't done well school, academically, socially. And they've gotten really deep into social media. Social media. Yeah. And that's their world.

[00:07:11] Well, if you're already struggling and you spend eight hours, 10 hours a day in social media, you will feel worse. Yeah. Not better. Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, it's fitting that you mentioned that because in our previous interview we were talking about crises of deconstruction in the Christian faith and how social media plays a big role in that, too.

[00:07:35] Because when you replace that flesh and blood community that we as human beings were created for and you replace it with a digital reality, that just is not good for our humanity. But you have so much wisdom in here. We're about to have to go to a break. But when we come back, I want to talk about some of the things that you mentioned in terms of recovering from burnout. Somebody may be listening and say, I identify with this. I think this is me. Or, hey, I think it's my spouse or my friend.

[00:08:04] And so you can go to pointofview.net and get a link to the book. But when we come back, let's talk about how can we reduce the noise in our lives? How can understanding God's purpose for us and identifying our purpose in life actually help us heal and recover? And how can we take control of our thoughts, like the Bible says, so that they can become our ally and not our enemy? So much practical wisdom here. So that's what we'll be covering when we come back.

[00:08:31] In the meantime, though, I do encourage all of the listeners, go to pointofview.net. Follow along with our conversations today. Also, give us a like on social media. We're on Facebook, Instagram, X. So go follow us there. You can also watch live. But we'll be right back in just a few moments. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:04] Yesterday, I talked about some of the political challenges that President Trump, his administration, and Congress faced this year. Today, I want to talk about the economic challenges. As I write this, the U.S. debt clock shows that the country is currently $36.4 trillion in debt. As you probably know, the national debt has increased under Republican and Democratic presidents and increased no matter whether Democrats or Republicans control Congress. But it is also fair to say that the country's economic circumstances are much worse four years after Trump left office.

[00:09:33] Federal spending under President Biden in Congress increased dramatically. Congress passed the $900 billion so-called COVID relief bill just after Christmas 2020 as Trump was leaving office. At the time, you could make the case that this was more than enough. But by March 2021, President Biden in Congress passed his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. Did the country need a stimulus of that size?

[00:09:57] Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers explained that the spending amount was much more than was needed to address any of the economic issues and warned that such spending would lead to inflation. Even that spending was not enough for Biden in Congress. Later that year, they passed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill. Then he proposed a $2.2 trillion Build Back Better Act. But by the end of 2021, inflation had reached almost 7 percent.

[00:10:23] Some in Congress were nervous about the price tag, so they downsized the bill and President Biden decided to rename it the Inflation Reduction Act. This is what the Trump administration has inherited and explains why the Department of Government Efficiency is looking for ways to cut spending. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:46] For a free booklet on a biblical view of intelligent design, go to viewpoints.info slash intelligent design. Viewpoints.info slash intelligent design. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Welcome back to Point of View. We're talking with Dr. Gregory Jantz about recovering from burnout, the issue of burnout, chronic stress.

[00:11:12] We've spent the last several minutes going over some of the symptoms of that. But one of the last things we mentioned was social media and how that is just so detrimental to us, especially when it replaces our real communities. But one thing you talk about in the book, Dr. Jantz, is how we can reduce the noise in our lives. So give us some tips in that regard. Well, reduce the noise. Well, one way, when you feel overwhelmed, there's probably a lot of clutter. You know, there's a mental clutter, and then there's the physical clutter.

[00:11:42] So take a look today at your physical space where you spend most of your time. Is it representative clutter? And clutter is hard to manage, but when we are burned out, stressed out, we tend to add to clutter. And clutter could be, hey, I'm just throwing my clothes down. I haven't done laundry here. I'm not putting papers away. I'm not cleaning the kitchen.

[00:12:12] You know, it's that basic self-care that's really important. Physical clutter, like I'm not doing good personal hygiene. I'm not really showering that often or taking care of myself. So clutter comes in various forms, but it adds up, and it adds to the stress. So that's one to look at. Yeah, good tips.

[00:12:39] And I think, you know, one of the first things to go, you know, I have little kids, so whether you're a busy mom and you're a caretaker for family or you're just on the go, busy with work and other commitments, is what you call self-care. And sometimes that's just taking care of our basic needs, and those are so important. And so I wanted to talk about this other point that you make, and I think this may be especially relevant for people who maybe they are in ministry or they're in the ministry, like I said,

[00:13:08] of maybe parenthood or taking care of loved ones. And they say, but God wants me to do all these good things. I'm passionate about this, or I believe in this. These people need to be helped. I need to be ministering. I need to be doing this. But God actually has a vision for us where we're able to do those things and thrive, doesn't he? Well, I like the word thrive, and that means I've got to figure out my own self-care.

[00:13:38] If I'm overextending, if I'm codependent, if I step over the line where I'm trying to over-serve, I love serving, but if I'm over-serving, I begin to hurt myself, and eventually, eventually I won't be effective, and I could end up resenting helping because it's so overwhelming. And so I say, you know what?

[00:14:07] Go out for that 20-minute walk. Drink your water. Do some real basics, but make sure you're caring for yourself. You'll feel better about what you're doing for others, and it really will make a difference. 30 days, practice good self-care. See what difference it makes. Yeah, and what I love about the book, too, you know, it's small. I read it in one sitting, but every section has... Yes, yes.

[00:14:37] Yeah, it's very palatable, very easy to digest, but every section has practical tips, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to share it with people in my life, because it's not just like, you know, the theoretical, you know, ideas of, oh, we should all be less stressed out. It's like, okay, great. How do I do that? Well, you give us some examples of how to do that. Another thing that you talk about, and you actually give kind of some, you know,

[00:15:02] tips and ways that we can go through this process, but how can we define our purpose, and will that impact our health when we do? Yeah, purpose is really interesting. And by the way, the book is small, because when you're burned out, it's hard to concentrate. So I'm just going to give it to you in a simple way. How's that? I appreciate it. Purpose. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we tend to keep our passion when we're really living with that sense of purpose

[00:15:32] or direction. And I know at times that can seem a little confusing, but sometimes people choose a direction because they think, well, that's other people's expectation or my family. And you have a lot of shoulds. I should be doing all this. And yet, it really doesn't resonate with what maybe God has really designed you or called you to do. And so purpose and burnout can go hand in hand.

[00:16:02] Now, there's a kind of burnout in the workplace. Maybe you feel like, man, I love what I'm doing. But then suddenly, maybe there's a new supervisor or manager, and there's additional pressure like you've never had before. And maybe some of the expectations, I can't keep up with it. It's too much. And then you end up feeling burned out and you no longer love your job. You don't have the passion anymore. So that happens too.

[00:16:32] That's what happened to me. I love what I'm called to do. I wasn't practicing good self-care. I burned out, got sick physically, got sick emotionally, and I had to rebuild. I'm more passionate now, many, many years later, about what I'm doing because the self-care and the health, keeping healthy relationships is the key. Such good advice.

[00:16:59] And a lot of times when we are in this rut, I guess, we can start maybe feeling guilty about it, start having negative thoughts, and then that just perpetuates the problem. And our thoughts become our enemy. But you talk about making our thoughts an ally, which I think aligns beautifully with what the Bible says, which is that we're supposed to take our thoughts captive and renew our minds. So what are some ways that we can start doing that?

[00:17:29] When I think of renewing my mind, I also think of the verse in 2 Timothy 1.7 that says, For God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. Yes. Okay, what do I need to do to build this sound mind? Well, maybe take an old-fashioned, they still make them, three-by-five cards. And I want you to write a verse on a couple cards.

[00:17:57] And I want you to go outside. I want you to go time it. It's a 20-minute walk. I want you to pull out that three-by-five card several times. And I want you to say that verse out loud. And be prayerful. Have a journal. And I want you to just, what do I need to be doing to rebuild my sound mind? Do I need to ask for outside help?

[00:18:27] Do I need to have others in my life who come alongside me? Do I need accountability? Do I need to do to build that sound mind? And sometimes we do need to have outside help and outside intervention. And sometimes there's some trauma or some root issues in our life that keeps dumbling us up,

[00:18:54] that we need to address some things in order to move on and develop that sound mind. So this is a time of reflection to go, okay, am I repeating patterns in my life? Do I have a pattern of addiction or a pattern of broken relationships? And I need to address some core issues. That's important as well. So good.

[00:19:21] Again, you can find the link for this book at pointofview.net. I highly encourage you to grab a copy. But before we go to our next break and wrap up our conversation, Dr. Jantz, what are your final words of advice that you would give someone who feels overwhelmed, overloaded, and maybe even hopeless? You may not feel it. There is hope. Hope comes when we have a plan.

[00:19:47] So we just need to get some baby steps together and start to build a plan. That's why I made the book really small with some things. I want you to begin to plan. I want you to go to my website, aplaceofhope.com. I have a free confidential test related to burnout.

[00:20:10] I want you to take that and I want you to begin to look at, okay, let's put together an action plan. And we can do that. Hope always comes when we start building a plan. This is so good. So, yes, go to that resource. What a great resource, aplaceofhope.com. And if you forget that, don't worry. You can remember to go to pointofview.net and find all of those links. But thank you so much, Dr. Jantz, for being with us.

[00:20:38] We've been talking with him about his book, Beyond Burnout, Regain Your Passion and Energy. There is so much wisdom packed in this little book right here. And it is digestible and it is easy to read. I read it all a couple days ago in one sitting. So I recommend getting a copy. Take care of your mental health and your emotional health and your physical health. And we'll be more effective for God's kingdom when we do that. We're about to go to one of those breaks.

[00:21:05] But when we come back, I'm going to spend the last few moments of the show talking about some news. I want to talk about free speech. It's an issue that the vice president brought up when he was speaking in Europe recently. Also, what else is happening abroad? We've got some major developments going on with the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia. So we'll touch on all that right after this short break. The Bible tells us not to worry.

[00:21:34] And yet there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today. Thankfully, the Bible doesn't stop at telling us not to worry. God gives us a next step. He says we need to pray. But sometimes even knowing what to pray can be difficult. And that is why Point of View has relaunched our Pray for America movement, a series of weekly emails to guide you in prayer for our nation.

[00:22:04] Each week, you'll receive a brief update about a current issue affecting Americans, along with a written prayer that you can easily share with others. We'll also include a short free resource for you in each email, so you can learn more about the issue at hand. Will you commit to Pray for America? Go to pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner at the top of the page to subscribe.

[00:22:34] Again, that's pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner. Let's pray together for God to make a difference in America. Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:02] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, your guest host for Point of View. Welcome back. I'm Liberty McCarter filling in today for Kirby Anderson. And the first hour and a half of the program has been great. We had two great interviews with Ian Harbour, his book Walking Through Deconstruction.

[00:23:27] And we just wrapped up our conversation with Dr. Gregory Jantz on his book Beyond Burnout. Both of those are great resources, and you can find them at pointofview.net. So if you missed the first bit of the show, I encourage you to go back and listen to it or watch it online and look at those books and those topics and those resources. But let's turn for the last half hour to some news.

[00:23:51] And the first thing I want to highlight, and really not just highlight, but take a little bit of a deep dive, is this issue of free speech. And so you can go to pointofview.net to find an article that I'm discussing today from the Free Press by Andrew Roberts. The Nazis did not weaponize free speech, he says. They crushed it. Why are we talking about this? You may say, well, yeah, that's obvious.

[00:24:16] I knew that the Nazis weren't necessarily fans of free speech, but it's not so obvious to a lot of people today. So if you listened last week, I had the opportunity to join Kirby on the Weekend Edition, and we talked about this briefly. But recently, Vice President J.D. Vance gave a speech in Munich, Germany. And it was at the topic of the conversation was security. He was speaking at a security conference.

[00:24:45] But instead of addressing external threats, he actually chose to focus on the internal threat, not just in Europe, but in the United States as well, he pointed out, of the suppression of free speech. And so I thought he did a great job in a very eloquent and winsome and yet firm way, calling out the ways that the free nations of the West have actually censored and suppressed free speech that they don't like in recent years.

[00:25:13] And why that is a danger, because free speech is a core value of our free societies, or at least it should be. And we can't really effectively fight external security threats if we don't even know what we're fighting for or if we lose freedom in our own society. So that was I encourage you to look up the speech online and listen to it. But that was kind of the overview. Well, as you can imagine, it was met with a lot of different reactions. A lot of people criticize the speech.

[00:25:41] Of course, there's the whole criticism based on the context saying, you know, we need to be careful in the way that we speak to our allies. That wasn't the time or place to, you know, get everybody in trouble. I'm not really here to talk about that aspect, but I do think it needed to be said. But some people actually decided to attack the content of the speech as well. A prime example is CBS host on Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan.

[00:26:09] And so we mentioned this briefly on Friday, but she was interviewing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and really went after the vice president and challenged Rubio on some of the points that Vance had made. And said that he delivered a critique of European censorship in Munich while standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide. Those were Brennan's words.

[00:26:35] So basically, she's arguing that an abuse of free speech or free speech was used by the Nazis to commit genocide. Of course, Rubio, he reminded Brennan, he said free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities. That's not an accurate reflection of history.

[00:27:03] And we might just be satisfied or tempted to leave it at that and say, OK, yeah, that was kind of crazy. She obviously doesn't know her history, but I do think that we need to talk about this because we live in a time where free speech is not often shared as a core value. We've had heard arguments about speech being equated to violence. If it's hate speech, if it's offensive, then that's just as bad as physically attacking someone.

[00:27:29] Our culture is increasingly polarized where we don't have discussions with people we disagree with. And even, you know, you've seen this on university campuses where if there is a speaker that the audience doesn't like, they're shouted down or they're uninvited. They don't want to listen to disagreement. Also, anti-Semitism is on the rise. So you may come in contact with somebody who says, well, I don't know, maybe free speech is dangerous.

[00:27:57] So let's review because this article from the Free Press does a great job. But let's talk about when Hitler took power. The National Socialist took power when Hitler was appointed chancellor on January 30th, 1933. I'm reading from the Free Press article that I mentioned. Soon thereafter, the party began to assert control over newspapers, magazines, books, art, theater, music, movies and radio.

[00:28:22] And then they promoted somebody to this is his title minister of propaganda and public enlightenment. OK, and so he spoke at a rally where Nazis burned thousands of books. And if there is a kind of mental image of censorship that's seared into our collective psyche as people of the West, it's probably the book burning. You hear about that. People will complain about censorship of books and they'll liken it to that. Well, guess what?

[00:28:52] The Nazis really did that. They didn't weaponize free speech. This article argues they were systematically destroying it. Andrew Roberts is the article of the author, by the way, of this article from the Free Press. So in 1934, the Nazi regime made it a crime to criticize Hitler or his party, even jokes at their expense were banned on pain of imprisonment or worse. We've all made a few jokes at a politician's expense, no doubt. How'd you like to go to prison for that?

[00:29:21] So Hitler took Bolshevik Russia as Russia as his template, turning Nazi Germany into a state no less totalitarian than Stalin's Soviet Union already was. All opposing views were ruthlessly expunged from German society. Meanwhile, they ensured that radios became cheap enough to enter almost every home so that the regime could target the population with propaganda to a previously unparalleled degree.

[00:29:49] So they were disseminating speech that they approved of propaganda. But anybody who spoke out against them, anybody who made jokes about them, anybody who criticized them, they were they were sent to prison camps. They were in prisons. They were killed. Books were burned. You were not allowed to speak freely under the Nazi regime. If there had been true freedom of expression, it may not have stopped all the horrors, but more people would have known about it.

[00:30:17] You would have had questions being asked freely on newspapers and radio programs. You would have had curious investigative reporters looking into some of these issues more closely. But as it was, there was not dissemination of truth. There was a true suppression of information. And so Roberts ends his article this way.

[00:30:40] It was thus the absence of free speech, not its so-called weaponization, that enabled the greatest crime in the history of mankind. So I would go to pointofview.net and click on this article if I were you and read it for yourself because it is a good research resource to have. Because unfortunately, we live in a day and age where people are sincerely asking these questions.

[00:31:06] They are sincerely asking, is too much free speech a bad thing? They are genuinely asking, well, what if speech and I'm not saying our words don't matter. Of course, our words matter. And so people are acknowledging that truth and saying, well, if words matter, if our words have power, then shouldn't we stop people from saying hateful things? And if we allow them to continue saying hateful things, won't more people go along with that hateful ideology?

[00:31:35] And won't we end up basically having fascism again? And this is all this is what led Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation on CBS to ask this very question. And it's so important to have an answer and the answer to bad speech. As J.D. Vance so eloquently argued in his speech in Munich, Germany, is more speech. It's also education.

[00:32:03] And so I'm going to tease an interview that we'll actually be doing tomorrow. I'll be back with you on Point of View tomorrow. And we'll be talking about true education versus propaganda, because when you look at the Nazis, they had a lot of propaganda. They disseminated a lot of information. They wanted people to have radios. They wanted people to hear what they wanted to say. They might have even said, hey, we want to educate the people. We want people to be aware of what's going on. We're speaking the truth.

[00:32:31] But what they were giving them was propaganda. And so not truly more education or information. But when we are truly educated, then not only is that learning information, that's the same thing as indoctrination, which we'll talk about more tomorrow.

[00:32:49] But true education is having the mental faculties and abilities to critically analyze information that you see and that you encounter and to discern right from wrong and to discern the truth from it. And we've lost the ability to do that, I think, as a culture today.

[00:33:06] And when we are really well educated and we can look at the issues and we can discern right from wrong, and then we can also speak eloquently, as our vice president made a great example of doing, then we can not suppress speech that we don't like, but we can argue against it. And we can encourage other people to use their critical thinking as well to see for themselves, to discern what is right and what is true. So, again, go to pointofview.net.

[00:33:35] Look at that resource to learn more about free speech and how the Nazis did not weaponize it. But we'll be back with more news after this short break. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Welcome back. We have a few minutes left in our show today. I'm Liberty McCarter.

[00:34:05] I've been filling in for Kirby Anderson. But let's turn our attention to what's happening around the world, specifically with Russia, Ukraine, the United States, the UN. Kind of a big news day for all of that yesterday. So let's get into it. And first, I just want to say I'm not an expert on foreign policy. I've said that on Point of View multiple times, and I understand that there are a lot of things that I don't understand and I don't know about when it comes to these topics. But I do like to think that I have common sense.

[00:34:34] I like to fancy myself and think that I'm a critically thinking person, decently smart, and that we need to have moral clarity on certain issues. I also think that the United States wields a lot of influence around the world. And a lot of people have called the president of the United States the most powerful person in the world. I think that's accurate. And what the president says matters. So what has the president been saying and why are we talking about this?

[00:35:02] Well, yesterday, the United States actually voted against a resolution at the United Nations that basically called Russia the aggressor in the war against Ukraine. And I have some articles here that we'll dive into kind of breaking down why that mattered and why that was disappointing to a lot of people, even a lot of conservatives who are very supportive of President Trump.

[00:35:30] And let's just acknowledge, too, that President Trump, you know, he's the art of the deal guy. OK, so he negotiates. He makes deals. He speaks boldly. A lot of times even shocking people on his own team. And a lot of times this works in his favor. It allows him to get what he wants. He's definitely a bold figure on the world stage. And there are things behind the scenes that we don't always know.

[00:35:55] We need to, you know, keep in mind that there may be other things at play here. Obviously, you've got Russia and then eventually, you know, there's concerns with China and nuclear weapons and not unnecessarily, you know, offending anybody. It's a delicate dance. And I understand that. However, I don't think that means that we need to sacrifice our moral clarity as a nation and that we can't speak the truth. So let's break this down.

[00:36:24] You can find this article at pointofview.net. It's from The Wall Street Journal by the editorial board. A sad day for the U.S. at the U.N. The land of the free votes with Russia on a Ukraine war resolution. So let's just kind of go through some of their points. They write, the United Nations is no great moral arbiter of anything. That's true. But at least the United States has tried over the years to have that group of nations recognize the truth about bad actors.

[00:36:51] That wasn't the case Monday as the U.S. voted with Russia against a General Assembly resolution calling out Russia for its invasion of Ukraine three years ago. What a regrettable moment is what the editorial board of Wall Street Journal says. The resolution wasn't really that strong. It wasn't really have any practical importance. It was really just rhetoric, but it noted with concern that the full scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation has had devastating and long lasting consequences.

[00:37:21] And the resolution called for an early cessation of hostilities. That doesn't seem too controversial if you've been aware of what's happened in the news. But it was apparently too much, according to the Wall Street Journal, too much of a rebuke of Vladimir Putin for President Trump to tolerate as he seeks to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war. And the U.S. has supported resolutions like these every year since the war began, but now is voting with the world's rogues rather than its allies.

[00:37:51] And in the U.S., according to the Wall Street Journal, even tried to pressure Ukraine to withdraw its resolution. The U.S. put forward another resolution that didn't cite Russia as the aggression as the aggressor. We can look back a few decades to Ronald Reagan. He was up against in the Cold War Russia as well, the Soviet Union. And according to the Wall Street Journal, he sought peace and achieved it. He never shrank from telling the truth about the Soviet Union.

[00:38:21] The truth was an essential weapon in defeating what Reagan called an evil empire. So this is important because it seems that we can't even state the facts anymore. As a nation, we can't even say that Russia was the aggressor in this situation. This one's not posted online, but just a little additional article from Noah Rothman over at the National Review. He says, do we have to lie on Russia's behalf?

[00:38:49] The Trump administration's efforts to secure something it could plausibly call a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine seem to have compelled the administration to internalize the notion that Ukraine is the real obstacle to peace. That's the only rational conclusion we can come to by by watching some recent actions. So remember the rogues that the Wall Street Journal mentioned that the U.S. sided with.

[00:39:14] This is who also voted against the revolution, along with the United States. Russia itself, of course. North Korea, Nicaragua, Sudan, the Central African Republic. Not normally nations that the United States sides with.

[00:39:30] The only Democratic ally that joined the United States in opposing that resolution was Israel, understandably, because Israel is really depending on the Trump administration right now in its own situation. So they didn't want to do anything that would make Trump upset. So understandably. But other than that, you had the U.S. siding with a lot of people that traditionally the U.S. has called bad actors.

[00:39:58] And Noah Rothman asks in the National Review, is this what's needed for Moscow to get to guess? Is it absolutely necessary to compel U.S. elected officials to lend credence to Russia's revisionist history to secure a lasting, forget just, peace in Ukraine? That seems to be the Trump administration's conclusion. So, again, this is what concerns me, is not even the fact that Trump is trying to reach a deal.

[00:40:28] We all know that the war needs to end. It's not that we are trying to be, as a nation, more mindful, more intentional, maybe even a little more stingy with foreign aid. And I know that the Trump administration has talked about that, how we can't keep spending as much money to Ukraine as we have been, over $200 billion at this point, I believe. And it's not even about the fact that Ukraine might have to accept a less than perfect deal. I mean, that's reality, right?

[00:40:58] We want the lives to stop being lost. We want the war to end. But does that mean that we have to accept a revisionist version of history? Does that mean that we can't state what clearly happened three years ago, which is Russia invaded Ukraine? The president cares about borders. President Trump, he's trying to secure our own. But Ukraine's borders were invaded by Russia. And now he won't say that.

[00:41:26] Yesterday, he, in a little press gaggle in the Oval Office, he had the opportunity to call Putin a dictator. Last week, he called Ukraine President Zelensky a dictator. And when a reporter asked if he would apply the same moniker to Putin, he said, I don't use that term lightly. And he would not call Putin a dictator. And, I mean, clearly, Putin is. So it's just it's something to think about. It's something to pray about because our leaders, President Trump, his administration,

[00:41:57] they need wisdom and they need clarity. And again, I don't pretend to be an expert on all this. I wouldn't want to be in that situation. It's complicated. But we need to be praying for them. We don't need to fear speaking the truth and losing our moral clarity. So I encourage you to pray for our president and pray for our leaders and pray for the situation. And you can do that by going to pointofview.net and signing up for our Pray for America emails, because this week they go out every Thursday.

[00:42:25] The focus is on some of these foreign relations and the situation between Ukraine and Russia and the deal that Trump is trying to make. And so they need prayer. And it would just be great if you subscribe to those emails so that you could be praying with Americans around the nation every week. And that's what our nation needs. But I'm going to wrap it up there. It's been a great show. Thank you, Megan. Thank you, Karen, who is filling in for Steve today.

[00:42:53] And thank you for being with me on Point of View. I'll be with you again tomorrow. And I'm excited. There are a lot of good things to talk about. I hope you have a wonderful Tuesday. See you tomorrow on Point of View. Are you confused about changes happening in Washington, D.C.? Well, you're not alone.

[00:43:18] Are you frustrated that you can't get the full picture of what's happening from the mainstream media? You are not alone in that either. And that is why Americans need a voice they can trust. A voice that provides accurate news, trustworthy information, and most importantly, a voice that is anchored to God's Word. Point of View is that voice. But we need you.

[00:43:46] In just a few weeks, Point of View will celebrate Truth Team Week, where we encourage listeners like you to join the team of people keeping truth on the air. But you don't have to wait to make a difference. You can make a difference right now by visiting us online at pointofview.net and join the team. That's pointofview.net.

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