Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 1113 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
A Word of Encouragement - Ask Gramps


Wisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, and to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before.

Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase wisdom and create a living legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1113 of our trek, and it is time for our Philosophy Friday series. Each Friday we ponder some of the basic truths and mysteries of life and how they can impact us in creating our living legacy.

As we continue on this trek called life, sometimes we have questions about life, so our Friday trek is a time when we can “Ask Gramps.” Gramps will answer questions that you would like to ask your dad or granddad, but for whatever reason are unable to. No matter how old we are, I know that all of us would like the opportunity to ask dad or gramps questions about life in many areas.

We may mix it up a bit on our Friday episodes, but will strive to keep them down to earth and enjoyable. If you have any questions that you would like to ask Gramps, please email them to guthrie@wisdom-trek.com.

So the question for this week is…

“Hey, Gramps, why is it so important to be encouraging to others?”
A Word of Encouragement


It is not always easy to be encouraging to others, especially when the situation is dire, or you feel a bit discouraged yourself. The importance of encouraging cannot be underestimated. With spring in full swing now, listening to the spring peepers and other frogs in the evening reminds me of a story to help illustrate the importance of encouragement.

One cool spring evening the frogs were coming out of hiding from the day, and they started down an old farm road towards a pond that many of the frogs went to at night. Within a few hundred yards there were many frogs that had joined the group, which is referred to as an army of frogs. This army of frogs advanced forward one hop at a time. As they turned off the road toward the pond, three of the frogs that were in the front suddenly fell head first into a deep pit. When the other frogs saw them vanish, the crept up to the edge of the pit to see how deep the pit was. As the remainder of the army gathered all around the rim of the pit, they realized how hopeless the situation was. In their croaking tones, they shouted to the three fallen comrades that there was no hope of ever getting out.

However, the three frogs ignored their comrades and proceeded to try to jump out of the pit. Nevertheless, despite their efforts, the group of frogs at the top of the pit were peering over the edge and still croaking down to their fallen comrades that they should just give up as they’d never make it out.

Eventually, two of the three frogs took heed of what the others were saying, and they gave up, slipping into an even deeper crevice in the pit where they were crushed to death. The third frog ignored the other two and continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the army of frogs at the edged yelled at him to stop the pain and to just give up and die.



He seemed to ignore them and kept his eyes on the upper rim where his remaining comrades continued to plead. With a bit of a run and a giant leap, the third frog jumped harder and higher than ever finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs gathered around their exhausted friend and said, “Did you not hear us?”

With frantic motions of his legs,