Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Tanya Wilmuth.

I was inspired this morning by a friend who just got back from a conference and said that her favorite talk at the conference was on option three.

It was a whole talk about looking at life from the lens of two different options and actually adding a third option that

we don't ever consider to our list of what we can do next. I thought it was really, really great.

And I think it really applies to the way that we look at some of these passages in the Bible and the way we apply them to our lives. So today, thank you, Mindy, for the idea, the third option. So we all face moments of weakness getting into the options part, right? And when that happens, maybe it's because we're feeling out of our depth and a new job.

Maybe we're struggling through a personal loss. Maybe we're just realizing that we've made a mistake

that's hard to own. Maybe it's just one of those days that feels off. But anyway, when we're in

that place, it feels like we only have two options or two choices. Option one is just like the picket by your bootstraps kind of option.

Push through and pretend we're fine.

Act like we have it all together.

Ignore the struggle and convince ourselves we don't need help.

Don't ask for help.

And that, of course, leaves us feeling pretty exhausted and isolated.

Okay, so then there's option too.

And that's the shutdown and withdraw option. Give in to frustration, avoid the hard conversations,

decide we're not strong enough, basically give up, throw in the towel. Forget the relationship,

whatever it is that's making us feel uncomfortable. But then retreating often deepens the struggle rather than resolving it, right? Neither of those responses really help us move

forward. But what if there is a third option? Instead of forcing strength or giving up, what if

we leaned into honesty? And what if we admitted where we are? What if we acknowledged our limits

and reached out instead of

retreating? Picture this. You're struggling with a challenge, whether it's at work, in a relationship,

...