How can we survive a crisis?
Text: Proverbs 12:25-26
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: Every day, everyone, everywhere has moments of stress. Sometimes it's financial. Nobody enjoys receiving bills in the mail and deciding who to pay now and who to pay later. Sometimes it is work-related. We may get a new boss, a deadline may be moved up, or we hear rumors that people will be replaced by AI. Will it be me? Sometimes it is at home. Juggling the demands of parenting, caring for aging relatives, and household chores is never easy. Coping with illness, injury, or the realities of aging is equally challenging. But as emotionally draining as these may be, most of us can cope. We've got the skills to muddle through the mundane pressures of everyday life. What is not so easy is dealing with truly traumatic events. When the inconvenient breezes of life are replaced by tornadoes, and raindrops escalate into floods, we begin to wonder whether traumatic events will sweep us out to sea. It seems we are drowning in a sea of despair. If you have ever wondered how you will cope when the inevitable tsunamis of life threaten to overwhelm you, and how you can prepare today for this terrible tomorrow, then listen to Nathan Norman, Kent Edwards, and Vicki Hitzges' discussion as they rediscover King Solomon's secret to successful living during difficult seasons of life in Proverbs chapter 12, verses 25 and 26. 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 12, verses 25 and 26, as we join their discussion.
Kent: Vicki, Nathan, what are some of the routine challenges of life that can lead to low-grade anxiety?
Vicki: Oh, I'm going through a couple right now. I have two friends that I care about very much, and both of them are dying. That's not exactly routine, but they're, they're dying, and neither of them know the Lord. And I've been a witness to one today, and it didn't go anywhere. And he was concerned that I would not be his friend anymore. Oh, and I said, no, this is— this doesn't affect that at all. But I felt the pressure to witness well and correctly before I went. And then on a whole different plane, but you'd have to know me, I want my house perfect and spotless. I want the beds made. I want the carpets to have vacuum cleaner marks in them. I would be for having vacuum cleaner marks woven into the carpet from the factory.
Nathan: That seems marketable.
Vicki: Yeah, I know. I think so too.
Nathan: I don't have carpet in my house, but I have rugs.
Vicki: I know. I totally agree with that. There's just things, just things. And then somebody offered me a job, but we're trying to negotiate that. And I don't want to be greedy. But on the other hand, I don't want the job unless they pay me an obscene amount of money. There's just a lot going on, you know.
Kent: Just for our reader or to our listeners so they're aware, on this show everyone's paid exactly the same amount of money. Yes.
Vicki: And it's obscene.
Kent: Obscenely low.
Nathan: Yeah, yeah, the other end of the spectrum. Oh yeah. No, I— yeah, so routine challenges, man, those are easier to tackle. I tend to have the more traumatic ones. But you know, it's the daily grind of things. Wake up, get the kids ready. Get each kid their own, uh, breakfast. Make them lunch. Uh, make sure the dishes are washed. Feed the cat. Scoop the cat litter box. Uh, you know, tell the kids— tell, uh, kid number 1 57 times, get up, get up, get up. Brush your hair. Brush your hair. Brush your teeth. Brush your teeth. Put deodorant on. Put deodorant on. Please put deodorant on. Why are you taking a tone with me? Why are you getting angry? I have no clue why. I'm so sorry. Keep going. Um, You know, getting the kids on the bus, driving another kid to school, uh, doing laundry, making dinner. Like all— like if you have kids, all you do is like make food, right? Uh, so—
Kent: or a carpool.
Nathan: Yeah, make food, you know, get, get the kids to their appointments, get them to their activities, uh, rinse and repeat over and over and over again.
Kent: Yeah, yeah.
Nathan: And then you have, you know, bills come in, uh, people call, uh, with, with unexpected issues. Extended family members, events, and drama. Even the good positive things can be very stressful if you're overwhelmed. So I know, Kent, over by you, there's a gas station franchise called AM/PM. And when I lived there in LA, their slogan was "Too much good stuff." And because you walk in and they just have everything. It's like a It's a miniature shopping mall there. And too much good stuff. And I think that's a good phrase to remind ourselves. Even when everything is good, but there's too much of it, it's still stressful.
Vicki: It's still stressful.
Nathan: It's exhausting. It's anxiety-inducing because it's too much good stuff.
Brian: Yeah.
Vicki: Well, we answered that question.
Kent: Well, that's because Brian was right. Everyone, everywhere, every day has moments of stress. Welcome. Welcome to this side of the grave.
Vicki: Yes.
Kent: But in Proverbs 12:25, Solomon talks about anxiety in a different way. Vicki, do you notice the first phrase of that verse? He says, "Anxiety weighs down the heart." Yeah, that's important to note because he's here not just talking about a pebble in my shoe kind of issue. He's talking about an existential crisis, an intolerable crushing burden. That word there, anxiety, is used a number of times in Scripture. Saul mentions it in 1 Samuel 9 when he's out hunting for his donkey and he can't find the thing for love nor money. And And so finally he says to his servant, "Come, let's go back, or my father will stop thinking about the donkeys and start worrying about us." Anyone who's a father, who's a parent, knows that when your kids don't come home on time, you start wondering.
Nathan: 100%. We had a rainstorm the other day. My middle son walks home from school usually, and man, he was, I don't know, 45 minutes late coming home. So I went out, torrential downpour, looking everywhere that he could possibly gone. And he wisely ducked into the supermarket and was hanging out in there with his friends. But yeah, it was scary not knowing where he was.
Kent: My oldest son, the former Marine, he loves mountain climbing. Yesterday he— he's staying with us at the moment— and yesterday he got went to bed at, I think, 6 PM. No, 4 PM. Woke up at about 10 PM, drove out to Palm Springs so at midnight he could begin to climb that mountain that— I don't know if you remember that, Nathan, but has the gondola ride.
Nathan: Yeah.
Kent: Up most of the way. So he started at the base, climbed by himself all the way to the top of that mountain. Was it 7,000, 8,000 feet? And then walk back down.
Vicki: That's a long way to walk on a flat surface.
Kent: That, I mean, that's incredible. Like, that's, I don't know how he could do it. I didn't volunteer to join him. But I can tell you his wife was anxious. And so she had her phone going and she could track him every step of the way. And And she wasn't fully at peace until he literally walked into the door of our house. Even on the way home, you know, maybe he's so tired, maybe he'll get in an accident. That's anxiety. Yeah, that's— it's heavy stuff. That's how this word is used in the Bible. In fact, in Psalm 44, the psalmist is afraid. Even of losing God himself.
Vicki: I had a friend whose husband left, and he left her with 4 children, and she was pregnant with the 5th. And she prayed and prayed, and she just felt like God wasn't answering. And probably, I don't know what I'm about to read here, but probably felt the same way as David did in this song. Awake, Lord, why do you sleep? Rouse yourself, do not reject us forever. Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression? We are brought down to the dust, our bodies cling to the ground.
Kent: It's kind of the ultimate anxiety, isn't it? That if God has abandoned us.
Vicki: If you're in a place where the only thing you've got left is the Lord, and you think He's not there, you got nothing.
Kent: So the psalmist here is talking to all of us, not about the little things of life, but anxiety at the existential level, an existential crisis. What causes those kind of things today? We've kind of alluded to it, but are there other kind of life events that you would rank under the column of not minor anxiety, but a major crisis?
Vicki: Well, sure. I just spit one out there. A husband or a wife leaves and you're not expecting it. Or they can die and you're not expecting that.
Nathan: Yeah, any loved one passing away that you're, you're close with, right?
Vicki: Yes.
Nathan: That is really difficult. Even the, the process of grief is hard because people will try to relate to your grief through their grief. And not everyone does this, but some people will minimize your grief, right? If they weren't close to you know, the family member that you're grieving, they're like, well, you know, you think that's bad? Yeah, you're right. Well, or it's not, you know. Yeah, you know, um, yeah, we had, um, you know, we had a miscarriage and I had a good friend who shared with me about his miscarriage and he said, you know, in the retrospect, it was the best thing that had ever happened to us, you know, because we didn't— because, because we didn't, we didn't want to, um You know, like, it would have been too much to, to deal with another kid. And it was like, you know, I've never wanted to punch someone so hard in my life. I didn't. Um, but, uh, you know, if he'd said that today, I probably would have said that out loud. Like, you know, that's— and I get he was trying to relate, but, but he was, he was trying to minimize my pain in some way, but it just wasn't helpful. People, many of us, myself included, just often don't deal with grief and stress. We try to minimize someone's pain instead of sitting with them in it. And, that's anxiety because now I'm angry at them and then I'm feeling, "Man, am I making too big of a deal out of this?" It's this whole psychological problem. And, if anyone has anxiety, which is another major cause of existential crisis, some people have physiological anxiety disorders and your body is just constantly triggered. That might be because of past traumatic events, that might be because of physiological issues, but that's hard to deal with, right, if that's constantly clicking off and constantly going. And, um, there's a lot of those large massive problems, you know. You can ask yourself, um, did I pick the right job? If you're not happy in your marriage, did I marry the right person? And then if you're frustrated with your kids, should I have Should I have had any kids at all? All of these things which are really trying. Your finances are in the dump, or you get audited by the taxman, or you have unexpected bills that come up. It is all catastrophic feeling in the moment.
Kent: It is. Well, we've done a good job of talking about trauma.
Vicki: We've got the problem down. Yeah.
Kent: We got that nailed.
Nathan: Good night, everybody. Be warmed and blessed.
Kent: But the good thing is that Solomon doesn't stop there. In Proverbs 12:25, do you want to read the entire verse for us now, Vicki?
Vicki: Yeah, I do. He says again, anxiety weighs down the heart. Amen. But a kind word cheers it up.
Kent: Hmm. When anxiety knocks a person out of commission, the personal kind and timely word restores— can restore the person, and it does so with encouragement and hope. Proverbs 15:30 says that, doesn't it, Nathan?
Nathan: Yeah, says, "Light in a messenger's eyes brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones." It does.
Vicki: And in Proverbs 25:25, it says, "Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land." Isn't that true?
Kent: Great writing there, by the way, to the writer of the proverb, because good news from a distant land, when we're recording this, there's not a lot of good news coming from distant lands, is there?
Vicki: No, but if you just all of a sudden out of the blue get a call from someone saying, "Hey, I want to hire you." "Hey, we had this extra money and I just feel like I should send it to you." Or, "Hey," you know, yeah, that's cold water to a weary soul.
Kent: It is. And think about what God's encouraging words in Ezekiel 37 did for the prophet himself.
Nathan: Said, the hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. Then he said to me, Son of Man, these bones are the people of Israel. Therefore prophesy and say to them, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them. I will bring you back to the land of Israel. I will put my Spirit 'in you, and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken.'" Wow.
Kent: Think how encouraging that would be to a discouraged prophet. If all you see is dead bones, as you see the people of God as being beyond hope, what does God say?
Nathan: They're not. They're not.
Kent: They're not.
Nathan: And I'm going to work, and you're going to— I'm going to work through you.
Kent: And I will accomplish what you thought was impossible. Man, when ministry is tough, when life is tough, words like that, ah, they are like cold water to a weary soul. When have you seen encouraging words be helpful to people in crisis? When have just words met the present needs of those in crisis?
Vicki: Well, I can think of a spiritual one off the top of my head. I was thinking about it the other day. After 9/11, which happened on such a beautiful day, I don't think there was a rain cloud in the United States. It was beautiful day.
Kent: Yeah, you're right.
Vicki: And then all of a sudden, bam, our whole lives changed forever. And I was talking to a gal at a speakers bureau who books me. And secular bureau. And she was rattled because she was in Washington, right where one of the planes went down into the Pentagon. And I don't remember how I got into the conversation, but I ended up giving her the Gospel. And she listened, and she said to me, "Vicki, that's good news." And I said, "That is good news. That's exactly what that message means. It's the Gospel. It's good news." Wow.
Nathan: Yeah, something that frustrates me, it's kind of weird that it frustrates me, but pastorally I will be talking with people and if they're in an abusive job situation, their boss or their job is taking financial or emotional advantage of them, or people within abusive relationships, whether they're dating or or married. And when I just acknowledge the pain that they're going through and say, "You are worth way more than this. You don't deserve this. You should not be treated like this. You are made in God's image and you matter and you deserve far more." I mean, they always, men and women, they all break down crying. They all cry. And it frustrates me, not because they're crying, but it frustrates me because it's like, Have you been so beaten down that you feel like you've lost basic human decency, right? Like you don't even deserve to be treated halfway decently. And the truth is, yeah, they have. They have. And it can happen within jobs, jobs within the church, jobs outside of the church. It can happen within families. It's incredible. Just when you speak life into somebody that they say, "Oh, I can take actions when I thought I was trapped and I couldn't do anything.
Kent: I was stuck here forever." Good examples of what Solomon has said, that an anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up. We do live in a world of anxiety, and many of the people around us need to speak godly words of encouragement Many of the people around us need us to speak godly words of encouragement and hope, but the day will come when we will need godly words of help from others. How do we prepare for that day?
Vicki: In Proverbs 12, it says, the righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.
Kent: So what do we need knowing that times of great pressure and anxiety are coming?
Nathan: We need to get a custom t-shirt that says, "I need a hug and a kind word." And just stand out in the corner until the universe sends them to you.
Kent: Well, and strangers can be of help. But Solomon says here, yeah, you'll listen more closely to a friend.
Nathan: Absolutely.
Kent: Choose your friends carefully. When should we start looking for the friends that we will need when these times of crisis arise?
Nathan: Yeah, that reminds me of the joke. When's the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. And the second best time is now.
Vicki: Now. Yes.
Kent: Oh, that's wise. I'm not sure Solomon said it, but he could have.
Nathan: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I, I think that there, there's similarity there, right? The best time to start looking to build your friendship is 20 years ago, or, or however long ago. But, but if not, then start now. Start building your coalition of entrusted people, because it takes time to build relationships. Sometimes there's relationships that you build and say, oh, this is a good solid relationship, and, and sometimes the relationship goes south. Sometimes the person truce proves to be untrustworthy. Sometimes they become untrustworthy, and it just takes time to build those healthy relationships.
Vicki: Which begs the question, how do we know who the right people are?
Nathan: Hmm.
Kent: Because there's a difference between an acquaintance and a friend, right?
Nathan: Yeah.
Kent: Vicki, you've got, as you've already shared, a real heart for evangelism, and those are people that you care about. But they may not kind of be the friends that Solomon is talking about here. Vicki, read us the rest of the whole proverb so we get it in front of us.
Vicki: It says, "The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray." So how will we know if we have the right people as our friends?
Nathan: Well, they're going to lead us closer to God and godliness, godly attributes. They will point us towards love and joy and peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and faithfulness and self-control. And we know that they're not if they're kind of leading us in the other direction. Yeah, pop them in the face, you know, throw hands. I would have told him off.
Kent: Yeah.
Nathan: Go slash his tires.
Kent: Godly people give godly advice. And ungodly people, even though they could be great apprentices, I don't think we should isolate them from our life. Vicki, I know you don't, and I try not to. But at the same time, I need to be careful listening to their advice. Jesus said that in Luke 6 when he says, "A good man brings," what, "out of his heart." A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart.
Vicki: And an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart, for the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
Kent: Yeah, godly people can give godly advice. Godly people can give you godly guidance when you need it the most. That's why Solomon said that a righteous man is cautious in friendship. But the way of the wicked leads them astray. Look, again, Brian was right. We live in an age of anxiety. Our society tends to recommend medication and therapy to deal with anxiety, but the advice that Solomon is giving is different. He is saying that we need to have godly friends who can give us godly advice when the anxiety of the moment can skew our thinking and the pain we feel could lead us astray. That, godly friends, those are our coping strategy. How can we overcome the difficult discouraging days that will come our way? With the help of encouraging words from godly friends. You know, there's a classic American folk song written from a poem dating back to the 1800s called "Home on the Range." Oh, yes. You may remember that old tune. Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play, where seldom is heard— you remember the rest, Vicki?
Vicki: A discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day.
Kent: May that be said of us. May we be the ones to offer encouraging words to those who need them and be willing to receive them when we need them. During times of stress, encouragement is God's coping strategy.
Brian: We just heard good advice. When difficult or discouraging times come our way, we can overcome those difficult emotional distresses.
Kent: How?
Brian: By getting encouragement from godly, righteous friends. 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 and Cuba and a Paul in the fall. 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. The team is off next week, so be sure to join us in 2 weeks as we continue to learn from God's wisdom in the book of Proverbs. You won't want to miss it!
Nathan: Okay, well, let's pray. Let's pray for Vicki's attitude.
Vicki: Good idea.
Nathan: And mine. And jump right in and listen to Nathan Norman, Kent Edwards, and Vicki Hitzkes's— Yeah, I guess that's— Is that how— How do you possess your name there, Vicki? Is that correct?
Vicki: I would possess it Vicki Hitzkes's discussion.
Nathan: So you do S apostrophe, right?
Vicki: No one's gonna know but me. Vicki Hitzkes discussion. I get it.
Kent: No, but that is—
Nathan: well, no, how do you do it? I'm just curious. Well, because some Bibles, they will do possessive with Jesus, S apostrophe. Some do S apostrophe S, and some avoid the situation altogether by saying the name of Jesus.
Vicki: I would tend to do that. I've read somewhere that it is always wrong to put apostrophe S. On an S word. I don't know if that's true. Oh, I don't know.
Nathan: Somebody's got to tell the Holman Christian Study Bible or the CSB Bible 2nd Edition that they're wrong because it's Jesus like S apostrophe S.
Kent: Yeah, but my wife knows grammar and she says at the end of Edwards, if it's plural, you just have to put a little apostrophe.
Nathan: Okay, all right. Possessives.
Vicki: I think so too. So Yeah.
Nathan: Okay.
Kent: All right.
Nathan: Fair enough. All right. Well, the CSB is wrong then.
Kent: Where seldom is heard— you remember the rest, Vicki?
Vicki: A discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day.
Kent: May that be said of us. May we be the ones to offer encouraging words to those who need them and be willing to receive them when we need them. During times of stress, encouragement is God's coping strategy.
Nathan: Home, home on the range.
Kent: You didn't stop recording, did you?
Nathan: Absolutely not.