Wisdom-Trek / Creating a LegacyWelcome to Day 1373 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomHope Beyond The Horizon – Ask GrampsWisdom - 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, 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 1373 of our Trek and time for our Philosophy Friday series. Each Friday, we will ponder some of the fundamental 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 where we can ‘Ask Gramps.’  Gramps will answer questions that you would like to ask your dad or granddad, but for whatever reason, this is not possible. 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 (mailto:guthrie@wisdom-trek.com)


So the question for this week is:


“Hey, Gramps, I am struggling with keeping my hope alive with the social-distancing restrictions in place. Even though there seems to be some possibility of slowly lifting those restrictions, what advice do you have to help me strengthen my hope?


Hope Beyond The HorizonThe entire world is still, for the most part, under shelter in place orders due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This has been such a trying and uncertain time for so many people. I see that many have lost their hope. Some have lost their jobs. Some may lose their businesses. Some have become ill, and yes, some have lost their life. It is so easy to lose hope during these times.


It appears that throughout the world, these sacrifices have prevented many from becoming ill and dying. While there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon because it seems that some business can start gradually opening back up, there is in the back of our minds, will this cause a resurgence of the virus. This certainly creates a dampening of that hope.


If we put our hope solely in government officials, disease experts, statistics, modeling, and news reports, it becomes difficult to maintain that hope. It seems like their stories change every week. As Christ-followers, our hope is not based on any of these, although they may keep us informed. We are not responsible for this virus and its restrictions, but we are responsible for how we react to our current situation.  1 Peter 3:14-15 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+3%3A14-15&version=NLT) But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats. Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.I have to admit, though, even for the most mature Christ-followers, there are days where it is difficult to maintain a reasonable level of hope. Our world, as we knew it will probably never return to what was normal. We have to make sure that we are prepared, in our minds and heart, for whatever our new normal becomes. Nobody on earth, at this point, knows what that will be. So today, I would like to offer four steps along the road of having a life with hope, meaning, and purpose, even during these days.


I believe that the first thing we must accept is that hope exists. There is hope. Before we can...