How can we avoid ruining our lives?
Text: Proverbs 16:1-3
Hosts:
J. Kent Edwards
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2026 CrossTalk Global
Brian: A popular contemporary proverb says, "To fail to plan is to plan to fail." And that proverb rings true. Many people have lofty goals for their lives. Perhaps you've always wanted to be a firefighter and save people from burning buildings. Perhaps it is to succeed in business so you can provide for your children and grandchildren. Or to become an electrician or a plumber and start your own business as your father did. Or perhaps your plan is to become a university professor, a classical pianist, or the first astronaut to set foot on Mars. Whatever goal you set for yourself requires a plan. Firefighter? Better start exercising. Successful executive? A Harvard MBA would be helpful. Plumber or electrician? Better be looking for an apprenticeship. Every goal you set to achieve in life requires a strategy. You need a roadmap or GPS to help you get from where you are to where you would like to be. What is your life goal? What do you want to achieve in life? And how do you know that the decision you made is the best? How do you know what to do with your life? Listen in as Vicki Hitzges, Nathan Norman, and Kent Edwards take note of King Solomon's advice on making life choices in Proverbs chapter 16, verses 1 through 3. Welcome to Crosstalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life. Into All Our Lives. I'm Brian French. Today, Dr. Kent Edwards, Vicki Hitzges, and Nathan Norman continue their discussion in the book of Proverbs. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Proverbs chapter 16, verses 1 through 3, as we join their discussion.
Kent: Vicky, Nathan, you and I know that nobody can run in every direction. We all must choose a goal in life, uh, path that leads to a destination. Everybody's trying to find a purpose for life. Have you seen people trying to determine their life direction, struggling with that?
Vicki: Oh yeah, I think everybody does. I think I'm kind of there right now. I retired and I still like to do something significant with my life.
Nathan: Mm-hmm. Yeah, certainly. I know as a pastor, I see people in all stages of life. You tend to think it's just maybe people when they graduate high school. Certainly, that's the case there, but in their 20s and in their 30s and then kind of, Vicki, like you said in your stage of life, it's like, "Okay, what am I going to do now that I've retired? I don't want to just say I'm not doing anything, but how do I contribute to society? How do I make a difference with where I'm at?" I know for young people, sometimes they have to make a choice between a lot of good options, very different options. Am I going to go into the military? Am I going to go into school? Am I going to get a trade? Sometimes they have the opposite problem where they've tried to get into the trade school, the university, and they've said no. And now they have to say, "Well, what's plan, I don't know, G?" Plans B and C and Z have all been blown apart. "What do I do now that I've had disappointments?" And then you have into the mid-20s, they're trying to survive. Maybe not physically, but they're saying, "What do I do with the rest of my life and how do I make these choices as I'm—" I'm graduating college or I have this training now. What do I do with it? It's a very hard thing to make those decisions because oftentimes, you know, you make a decision and yeah, you could quit 3 months down the road, but this has altered the course of your life. Sure.
Vicki: And also, I know people, particularly attorneys, get into the law and they don't like it. And I've known pastors that go into the pastorate, and they feel stuck because for some reason they don't want to be in the pastorate anymore, but they feel like they're not trained for anything else. Oh yes, yeah, yeah, all too often.
Nathan: In fact, one of my favorite comic book writers is a trained lawyer. I met him at a convention years ago. We were talking forever, and, uh, and, and he started talking about law, and he was into, um civil law and really in immigration areas. He just said, "I don't like it at all." So he was a very successful comic book writer. I think he writes for most of the Star Wars material now. Yeah. So he hated it so much.
Kent: He's like, "I'm going to be a writer." Interesting topic. Keep going. Yeah. Well, and it's an issue that everyone wrestles with in life. Which is why Proverbs 16, the first part of verse 1 is so applicable. Well, it says, "To humans belong the plans of the heart." Yeah, so the topic of these first 3 proverbs in chapter 16 is life plans, which is significant at the moment because as we record this podcast, we're in the midst of college graduation season. Graduation is when students grab their hard-earned diplomas and try to answer a question that's harder and more important than any question on any exam they have written. They have to answer the question, "Now what? What will I do with my life? What are my goals? What do I want to accomplish in life?" In your experience, guys, how do you— how do you see graduates responding to those questions? How do they look for answers?
Nathan: I think a lot of people will say, "What am I passionate about?" and try and pursue their passions, things that they love. "I love this. I want to go into it." Or I want— or their wants, right? "I want to be really wealthy, so I'm going to take the top-earning job even though I know it's going to kill me and long hours and maybe have some ethically duvious decisions that have to be made, but that's where I'm going to go. Or I've seen the other side of that. It's kind of fatalistic where people say, "I'm just going to find something," and they settle, or they're just so desperate that they find anything and settle on that.
Vicki: I think lots of people just walk through the first open door. The problem with doing that— well, right now you're just lucky to find an open door, but the problem with doing that is sometimes you walk through that door and then you're stuck in that room and you may be stuck in that room for the rest of your life.
Kent: Yeah. And regardless of whether the job situation is tough or easy, you've got to make decisions and you've got a wide variety of decisions, many different types of jobs. And those jobs can take you into many different paths. And why not? As we read in Proverbs 16:2, It says, "All a person's ways seem pure to them." In the NIV, "All a man's ways seem innocent to him." So really, we say any plan's a good plan. What you need to have is a plan. You need to have a goal, you need a destination, and we need to work towards that. And that's graduation day. Students who finish their courses, look out and see unlimited options. The world appears to be their oyster. We can be whoever we want to be and do whatever we choose, and almost all of them are good options. Which should we choose? But Solomon, the best, wisest man who ever lived, begs to differ. Let's look at all of verse 1.
Nathan: Says, "To humans belong the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the proper answer of the tongue." Hmm.
Kent: So Solomon's saying, yeah, almost any direction looks positive. Many directions can look good, but from the Lord comes the proper answer. People are always asking after graduation the question, "What?" What should I invest my life in? A doctor, fireman, tax accountant? What should I do with my life? We cannot walk in many directions, so what should we choose? But Solomon, in these Proverbs, writes specifically for God's people. Not everyone, but for the people of God. And here we see the difference our life choices should be when God says we need to ask an additional question. Not just what, but we need to answer the question why. Our response to life decisions involves careful planning, weighing the arguments, and arranging the pros and cons of each option.
Nathan: Solomon says, from the Lord comes the proper answer of the tongue. He weighs our motives as well as our actions. All a person's ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord.
Kent: Hmm. So we have many options we could choose, but God is concerned what is our motives. Why do you want to take your life in that particular direction? Many people, as we've noted, choose their path in life because of wealth, prestige, security, or Maybe the best environment for their children. That's not wrong, but is it enough? My Reformed friends say, well, as God's people, the answer is easy. After all, that's what I was taught in the Presbyterian church I was raised in. There I learned man's chief end is to glorify God. And that's a good statement, wouldn't you agree? Absolutely. 100% agree. Yeah, absolutely, that's true. And this is the question every child of God needs to be asking. But my question is, how? Good question. So I think, you know, at Crosstalk we talk about having an idea, which is a question and an answer. So I will say to my Reformed friends, as I've said to myself, I know man's chief is to glorify God, but how can I best glorify God? So this is not an answer, this is the question, and we need to give the answer. How can I live my life glorifying God rather than myself? The question is easy. The answer is challenging. But God is calling us to make life choices based on criteria many graduates today do not have. How can we make our maximum spiritual impact? It seems that God needs to be involved in our life decisions. We must go beyond what I would like to do and be and ask, What God wants me to do and be. I found it helpful to ask myself, how has God uniquely gifted me? Where has he strategically placed me? Isn't it interesting that God could have had us born in any place, in any time in history, in any nation? So why did he place me here and now? What purpose does he have for me? What role does he want me to play for his kingdom? How can I maximize the gift he's given me and the time and the context he's placed me in? How does God want to use me to be salt and light? In a dark and decaying world. Again, we read in verse 2, just remind ourselves: All a person's ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord. So God is interested in our motives, not so much what, but why. Why do you want to be a firefighter or a business person, a plumber or electrician? The Shorter Catechism, when properly understood, says, how can I best glorify God in the situation God has placed me and the gifts that he has given me? Easier said than done. Nathan, Vicki, what advice would you give to those seeking the answer to these questions? How can they be sure that the choice— life choices they are making allow them to make their maximum impact for God?
Vicki: I was listening to what you were saying when I didn't do that when I was young. Should have, but I didn't. I wanted to be a movie star and it was all about glory for me. It's 100%. I ended up being a TV news anchor in Dallas, and the whole reason I wanted to be a movie star is I wanted to show the kids at my high school I was somebody. And so a screen was a screen. And but God, God used that anyway in spite of myself. And He developed gifts in me that He, He used to let me glorify Him as I matured. And He developed the gifts of speaking. And I was able to teach Bible studies. And even as I spoke in the secular world, I was able to talk about the Lord. He used that for His glory, but that wasn't because I was putting Him first. I absolutely wasn't. And the gifts I had back then were not the gifts I was able to develop later. I wonder if I— I don't even know if I knew what my gifts were back then, but I wonder if I had followed this advice what would have become of me? I just wonder.
Nathan: So to ask you a question here, while you were kind of in the midst of this, say, your news anchoring, did you have a shift at any point where you said, you know what, I want to use this for, for the glory of God?
Vicki: Oh, not for you. I mean, I never didn't want to glorify God, but certainly not when I was in news. I was just trying to tread water because I had I had grown up in Dallas, I'd lived in Dallas all my life. I didn't know Dallas had a mayor. And all of a sudden, I was in one of the biggest markets in the United States and I had to go cover Dallas City Council and commissioners and school board. And I mean, it was like being thrown into the Hudson and learning how to swim. But I learned an awful lot and I learned it fast. And it developed me fast. I learned a lot of skills quickly. God used that in me.
Kent: And it gave you a platform, didn't it?
Vicki: And it gave me a platform, yes.
Kent: That you could use not just for yourself, but for the Lord.
Vicki: God used that, but it wasn't because me and I was trying to honor him. I'm just telling you up front.
Kent: Not at first. No.
Nathan: But it sounds like at some point you decided that you wanted to honor him, right?
Vicki: I did. Once I started speaking, I absolutely did. And no matter who I was speaking to, I always wanted to say something that would give glory to God.
Nathan: Yeah, I think there's something to be said for just asking the question, right? I think by virtue of asking the question, you're cognizant of it, and it, it makes a paradigm shift, right? Oh, I have a choice between two jobs. This one's easy, but this one's going to have a bigger impact into the community. You know, which should I take? Okay, well, which— where can you glorify God the best in, right? Just asking that question clarifies the situation. Or you find yourself in, um, well, you know, Vicki, in your job, right? I, I've known a lot of newscasters over the years, and, um, by virtue of reframing your job as saying God has put me in this position to give glory to him, that changes the role right, versus someone who says, I'm here for my own glory, I'm here to, you know, go into the next market, into the next market, into the bigger market, versus how can I best glorify God in this position, in these relationships I have, in this platform that I have? That changes the role dramatically. I think just asking the question changes everything about your situation.
Kent: And even if we're not driven when making our career choices How can I best glorify God? Sometimes we discover while we're in them why God has placed us there and how he can use us in the midst of that. I know that my father-in-law was a high-level accountant, a senior executive for Gulf Oil. He would not lead a Bible study. He could not preach. He was not a born evangelist as you are, Vicki. But he was a man of integrity, and he knew the Bible, and he used that to guide his decisions, his relationships with others. He became a magnet among the other senior executives. He was soft-spoken, but they came to him looking for advice. They looked up to him because they saw his character. God calls us to be salt and light in a dark and decaying world. We can do that in every profession, every profession. And sometimes God is leading us even when we don't realize he's leading us into that profession.
Vicki: I don't have any doubt God put me there. I'm just saying I didn't go out of my way to ask this question, which I think is a great question. I'm just saying I didn't do that.
Kent: Yeah. And in my defense, in Luke chapter 14, Jesus makes that pretty clear that he'd prefer to make the decisions beforehand.
Vicki: Right. Well, it says large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them, he said, if anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even their own life, such a person cannot be my disciple. And in the same way, those of you who do not give up everything, you cannot be my disciples.
Kent: So Jesus is saying right up front that our life has to belong to him. It does not belong to ourselves. It belongs to him. And if it doesn't, we're not of him. And we hear the same theme echoed in Isaiah 6:8, don't we?
Nathan: Then I heard a voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' 'Here I am, Lord.
Kent: Send me.' When God calls us, he sends us. He uses us to accomplish his specific purposes that only we could in that situation. Let's just think broadly. Can you think of people in the Bible whose lives were turned upside down by serving God above all else?
Vicki: Well, Daniel certainly, he was just disobedient to the king. And he was told not to pray, and he went over by his window and he prayed. And the king was— the king kept getting angry at him. And man, he paid for that. They threw him in a lion's den. And I mean, just imagine that, to have lions, hungry lions stalking around you. But But he did that, and, um, boy, it would take amazing courage, but he did it, and he didn't seem to be afraid. He just knew God would rescue him, and he did it.
Kent: Well, Daniel and his friends went to a foreign land, worked for a leader that they did not see as godly at all, but their godliness transformed the nations and the people that they served. People saw God in them. They did. How about Abraham?
Nathan: Well, he left the metropolitan cultural center of the world. You know, God said, "Hey, come, come to the land that I show you, I'm going to give to your descendants." And he did. And he took what he had and he went down there. I mean, that's incredible. And Eventually, it led to the birth of the Israelites, eventually, over a lot of time and a lot of faith and a lot of trust and a lot of missteps along the way. Yeah, it absolutely changed his life. And changed his name. He started as Abram. Yeah.
Kent: And you think of the challenge that would be. The name Canaan actually means house of tents. So he started off in the house of palaces, and in obedience to God, went to live in the house of tents. Yeah. Yeah. And God used him, grew his faith over the years, and he said, "I will make a name for you." And he did. And almost everyone in the world knows the name Abraham. We see that in the In religious vocations. I mean, think of how God used the disciples. Did he call them specifically? He called Paul.
Vicki: Paul was out persecuting Christians and Christ literally called out to him, struck him in the street and changed his life and consequently generations of Christians in the future. Yeah.
Nathan: Yeah. And you got all the disciples. Jesus over here calling them off of their father's fish business. You know, like they're on the boat and he's like, come on, Come on and follow me. Come follow me. And they're jumping out of the boat and going after and following him.
Kent: Something like that happened to me finishing high school. I was deciding where to go and what path to pursue and would probably end up becoming a history teacher in a public school. That's, you know, I thought that was a safe job. But right after graduation, my future mother-in-law, said to me that in that past year, my senior year in high school, when I had been giving some devotions to an intervarsity group that met after school in her— in their house often, she said, "Have you ever thought of going to Bible school?" My initial response is, "No, no one with a brain goes to Bible school." And she said, "Yeah, but I've— sometimes you've been giving devotions." I've been listening at the top of the basement stairs. I think I hear gift. That changed my life. I didn't realize it, but that advice took me to Bible school. It took me into a lifetime of pastoring and education. There's no question that is how God gifted me. But God used a person to show me a gift that I didn't know that I had. When you know God's plan for your life, you will thrive because God's choice for our life— his choice for our lives is always the best plan. As Solomon points out in verse 3, how does this passage triumphantly end?
Vicki: Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.
Kent: Whenever our agenda matches God's agenda, he will establish our plans. He will use us in the secular world, in the church setting, whatever God places us. We can be salt and light in a dark and dying society. When you walk God's path in life, God will be with you and you will succeed in life. Because the best-laid plans are laid by God himself. I guess that's why I love that old chorus, "The Potter's Hand." Are you familiar with that, Vicki?
Vicki: It says, beautiful Savior, wonderful Savior, I know for sure all of my days are held in your hand and crafted into your perfect plan. I'm captured by your holy calling. Take me and mold me, use me, fill me. I give my life to the Potter's hand. Call me, you guide me, lead me, walk beside me. I give my life to the Potter's hand.
Kent: May that prayer be our prayer.
Brian: Want to know the best path for your life? Allow the Lord to establish your plans. Instead of asking, "What should I do?" Ask God to direct your path to accomplish His purpose in your life. When we ask God to accomplish His purposes in our lives, He promises to establish our plans. I trust that today's discussion of God's Word has been helpful and served as an encouragement to not just be hearers of the Word but doers. Together, let's bring God's word to life, to our lives this week. The Crosstalk podcast is a production of Crosstalk Global, equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. Crosstalk just finished successful trainings in Bucharest, Moldova, Southern California, and Kansas this season. And we're getting ready for another training in Kenya this summer. Help us train the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click donate in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also support this show by rating it on whatever platform you're listening to us. Be sure to listen next Friday as we continue to learn from God's wisdom in the book Book of Proverbs. You won't want to miss it.