Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 663 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
The Ultimate Fear


Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 663 of our trek, and it is time for our Philosophy Friday series.

Each Friday we will ponder some of the basic truths and mysteries of life and how they can impact us in creating our living legacy. We are focusing on how to live with less fear. We are exploring the trails on our trek of life that will help us to be fearless. This does not imply that we will reach the point where we are completely without any fear, for that is not only impossible, but also not wise. There is a time and a place for an appropriate level of fear, but most fear that we experience on a daily basis has no grounding and can be eliminated as we grow in wisdom, insight, and understanding.

So our objective for these next several Fridays is to experience a FearLess Friday on our trek of life. Today is our forth trail on our trek covering, “Imagine a Life without Fear.”

We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. We received some unexpected, but positive news this week. My primary client that I provide technical support for their SaaS based software product was acquired by a very large, publically traded company. This should provide stability for the company, but as with all changes such as this, we are never guaranteed of the outcome.

During changes like this, we could become fearful of the many unknown scenarios, or we can choose to look positively at the situation as a potential for growth and advancement. Most of the time, fear comes down to a mindset. Too many times we allow the seed of fear to germinate in our lives until it grows into a massive well rooted tree that is hard to cut down.

Last Friday we asked the haunting question, “Does God really care?” We determined that regardless of our situation, that indeed He does. Today we want to go one step further and explore…
The Ultimate Fear
What is the ultimate fear for nearly everyone? Is it the loss of a job, loss of a loved one, or loss of perceived control of others? Nearly always, the ultimate fear that we have is death. Aristotle called death the thing to be feared most because “It appears to be the end of everything.” Jean-Paul Sartre asserted that death “removes all meaning from life.” Robert Green Ingersoll, one of America’s most outspoken agnostics, could offer no words of hope even at his brother’s funeral. He said, “Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two entities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights.”
Such sad and depressing language. If death is nothing more than “the end of everything, between two peaks, which brings no meaning to life,” what is the purpose of even trying to die bravely? What if these purported wise philosophers missed the mark? Suppose death is different than they thought, less of a curse or end of all that we know, and more of a passageway between two realms? Not a crises to be avoided, but simply a corner to be turned?

This is what Jesus Christ taught us in John 14:1-3, "Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?  When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am." 

Do you believe the promise? If not, maybe it sounds a little too good to be true. The disciples certainly had difficulty grasping the concept. It almost sounds like the emails we receive from a Nigerian prince offering a portion of his fortune if we will only be a mediator.