Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 128 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Your Beliefs Create Your Reality (5)

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 128 of our Trek. Yesterday was day four of five on the trail of our reality, which is based on our beliefs. Our focus throughout this five day trek is to help you to realize how crucial it is that your belief system is based on a solid foundation of truth. Yesterday we explored how to upgrade your beliefs so that you can change limiting beliefs into empowering beliefs.

Today is our last day of our current trek, and we will determine how we can make the growing of your beliefs a regular part of your life’s trek.  If you missed any of the previous episodes on this trek, make sure you go back and listen to them all to get a complete picture. If you have any of your own observations, comments, or questions as we share time together on our daily trek, please share them in the comment section of our daily journal pages.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and it is starting out to be a week completely full with our client workload and many other activities. I was the guest on another podcast, which was released over this past weekend. The podcast is titled The Steep Side of the Mountain with host Manny Wolfe, and we discussed our lives and how we are able to integrate with the difficult times.

Now it is time to break camp for today and head back out for our fifth and final day on our reality trail. So far on our Trek, we have focused mainly on the role of our internal map of reality. We have also talked about how our beliefs serve as our internal map makers.

Learning to create a reality that empowers us rather than limits us is certainly a powerful and advanced life skill. This skill, perhaps more than any other, has the ability to totally transform the quality of our lives.

As the TV infomercials would say…

But wait, there’s more!

Creating an internal map of reality based on empowering beliefs is definitely something everyone should endeavor to do. With that said, I don’t want you to conclude that mastering this ability constitutes the final frontier because it doesn’t.

In fact, the real key to a rich and satisfying life is not found within the confines of an intricately detailed map of reality where every square inch is ruled over by some established law or belief.  God created us with a free will to make choices in our lives. Following the strict written code of the law has been replaced by the freedom we have in Christ. We do have freedom and flexibility in the choices that we make. We may not all agree in what constitutes a rich and satisfying life, or even what constitutes a life of faith, but we should choose to live a life that empowers us to fulfill our God-given potential.  To choose less would be a disservice to our creator. The real key to such a life actually lies…

Part 5: Beyond the Map

The problem with being too locked into a minutely detailed map is that everything is (seemingly) accounted for. Perhaps this point can be best made by looking at our earth.

What happens to people’s perception in areas where every square inch of land is accounted for? Don’t they tend to live and be restricted by precisely drawn boundaries or sets of laws? And, doesn’t that reality have a way of fostering preconceived ideas about how things are supposed to be? This type of mindset causes most people to become very judgmental of anyone that does not have the same strict belief system.  Except those clearly defined moral codes set out within Scripture, we need to be careful in attempting to implant our beliefs on others. To a large extent, those boundaries put very real limits on our life experiences.

When working with other people and their belief systems, we would do well to follow what Jesus taught in the good news according to Matthew 22:37-40,  “Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.’”

1. A different perspective

To extend the previous analogy, if you look at a world globe or map of the world, you will see all of the clearly marked dividing barriers of countries and states.  Now, what happens to our perception of the earth when we view it from space? About the only boundaries we can still see are the continents and oceans. And from that vantage point, what is our impression of the planet? It’s much more beautiful, right?

The point is, too many details and boundaries tend to shrink our focus. They can easily blind us to the beauty that surrounds us. If everything is precisely defined, we can quickly lose our sense of wonderment and awe. If we limit our beliefs to a strict set of laws, rules, and regulations, it is very difficult to allow our beliefs to grow and change as we gain wisdom, insight, and understanding.

If everything is precisely defined, we can quickly lose our sense of wonderment and awe.

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2. Balancing beliefs and boundaries

What does it take to experience life in a productive and meaningful way and still maintain our sense of discovery and adventure? At what point do the boundaries on our internal map of reality cross the line from empowering to limiting?

On days 3 and 4 of this trek, we established that it is our beliefs about who we are and what we are capable of that are either empowering or limiting. So, once again, it all comes back to how our beliefs create our reality. Only this time we are looking at the concept of limiting and empowering from a completely different angle.

3. Treasure hunting

When you think of a treasure map, what kind of image does it conjure up? Usually, it’s a map with some notable place markers, but not too many details. At least that’s how it is in the movies!

Finding the treasure always involves an adventure of discovery. The treasure hunters have barely enough details to keep them moving in the right direction. Everything else is discovered along the way. It’s the adventure that keeps them fully engaged and living in the moment.

As a Christ follower, I consider the Bible as my primary treasure map for discovery of that rich and satisfying life.  As is written in Psalms 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.”

4. Your internal treasure map of reality

For life to be an adventure of wonderment and awe, we need to treat it like a treasure hunt. We need our empowering beliefs to keep us headed in the right direction. To maintain our sense of adventure, we also need to avoid the trap of beliefs that create too many precise boundaries and preconceived ideas.

Living beyond the map does not mean that we don’t have a map. It means that we choose to discover the details along the way to enjoy our journey rather than try to fill them in ahead of time.It means approaching situations, people, and experiences with a sense of open curiosity. It means that we look for the treasures that are unfolding with each new day.

For life to be an adventure of wonderment and awe, we need to treat it like a treasure hunt.

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5. A shift in perception

When we are truly empowered by our beliefs, life gets simpler. We tend to let go of judgments and expectations and replace them with compassion and curiosity.

When we look at the earth from space, there are no national boundaries, conflicts, agendas, or disappointments. There is only beauty! Once we learn to view life from beyond the map, it’s pretty much the same scenario. It’s a beautiful treasure of wonderment and awe.

This was our fifth and final day on the trail of reality. If you would like to add to the discussion or have questions, please leave them in the comment section of today’s journal.  I hope that this trek has provided you with some points to ponder that will help you to gain wisdom and insight. Join us tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy, and we will explore the concept that if you want to have a rich and satisfying life, you have to do what is necessary by being the person that can make it possible. Be, do, and then have is the proper order.

That will finish our podcast for today. Remember to listen to your daily dose of wisdom on Wisdom-Trek.com or subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Spreaker, or YouTube so the episodes will be downloaded to you automatically.

I would really appreciate it if you would help Wisdom-Trek to grow by sharing Wisdom-Trek with your family and friends through email, Facebook, or Twitter so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day. 

As we take this Trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!