Shownotes
Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 699 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
Your Decisions Determine Your Destiny – Mindshift Monday
Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 699 of our trek, and it is time for our Mindshift Monday series. Wisdom-Trek’s primary focus is to assist you in creating your living legacy. Creating your living legacy can only be accomplished by gaining wisdom in many areas of life. You can only gain wisdom by changing what you allow to go into your mind, which is a result of changing the way you think.
In other words, to create your living legacy you must choose to be in a continual mode of Mindshift. It is easy to get stuck in a mindset that your current circumstances cannot be changed. This is not true, but you must understand this fundamental principle, “In order to change your life, you must change how you think and what you think about.” Our Mindshift Monday podcast and journal will be to provide you practical ways to make a mind-shift to a rich and satisfying life.
We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. Every decision, large and small that you make on a daily basis impacts your life and the lives of those that you impact. You are 100% responsible for the decisions that you make. This is why it is so important to guard what we allow into our minds because it will affect our decision-making ability.
All of us will make decisions which, after the fact, appear to be poor decisions. You must make the best decision possible, based on the information that you have at that point in time. As you learn to make better decisions by continually making a mindshift based on previous outcomes, your decision-making ability will become wiser, and results will turn out better in the long run. This is why we must be in the state of continual mindshift because…
Your Decisions Determine Your Destiny
Let me relay a story from the Old Testament about decisions that impacted an entire generation of Israelites. The importance of making proper decisions in life is illustrated by the children of Israel right when they were to enter into the Promised Land that God had promised He would give to them. At a crucial time when they were to enter the land of Canaan at Kadesh, they came to the point that had to make a crucial decision, and they began to doubt. The consequences were severe. Moses sent 12 spies to find out what they were up against and asked them to bring back a report. This is found in Numbers [13:25]-33.
After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land. This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea[a] and along the Jordan Valley.”
But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!”
But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!” So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”
The Israelites needed a drastic mindshift, and because they did not have one, the following factors influenced the nation of Israel into making a very unwise and wrong decision.
1. Their perceived circumstances caused the Israelites to make an unwise decision.
Walled cities and giants gave God’s people a “grasshopper” complex. They felt small, insignificant, powerless, and frustrated. Why? They had an incorrect mindset. They looked at God in light of their circumstances instead of their possibilities. They were more influenced by the size of the men than the size of God. The Jordan River wasn’t the great barrier that kept them from The Promised Land. The hindrances that shattered them were beyond the Jordon.
They made the drastic mistake of trying to handle tomorrow’s problems with today’s strength. It was not today’s difficulty that influenced their wrong decision, but the anticipation of tomorrow’s problems that brought about their defeat. How true this is in our lives also? How many times has an unwise decision been the result of bringing tomorrow’s perceived problems into today and making giants out of them? You cannot win tomorrow’s battles with today’s strength.
2. The negative influence of the 10 spies impacted an entire generation.
Ten men kept thousands of people from finding God’s perfect will for them. Ten men were more of an obstacle than the nations that they were to conquer.
In this situation, the enemies were not the Hittites, Amalekites, or the Jebusites but the unbelieving spies who spread a bad report. None of the previous miracles that the nation of Israel had experienced up to this point seemed to matter now. Just 10 men of influence and they used their influence to sway the minds of thousands.
It does not take great multitudes to change the mindset of the nation. Ten negative men caused untold misery that lasted 40 years and killed thousands of people. The blessings of God were lost for an entire generation.
3. Their unwillingness to sacrifice now caused suffering for 40 years.
With every great endeavor, a price must be paid. The greater the cause, the greater the cost. Men and women who accomplish much, sacrifice much. It falls back to the laws of planting and harvesting found in Psalms 126:5-6.
Those who plant in tears
will harvest with shouts of joy.
They weep as they go to plant their seed,
but they sing as they return with the harvest.
The price to be paid for entering The Promised Land weighed heavily on the nation of Israel. They did not realize that the harvest they would reap for not obeying was an entire 40 years wandering in the wilderness until an entire generation of people died. They thought security was not having to confront the giant battles of life. The only security that we have as Christ-followers is not found in avoiding battles, temptation, and problems, but being found obedient to God’s Word, regardless of the price.
The nation of Israel would have been far more secure fighting the giants in The Promised Land than wandering in the wilderness. No new land. No milk and honey. No shouts of victory. Just wandering. Every person over 20 at the time, except Joshua and Caleb, never entered The Promised Land. They all died in the wilderness. They tried to save their lives and ended up losing them.
We need to be in a continual mode of mindshift. Every decision that we make is a determining factor in our destiny of life, and the lives of generations to come.
Next week we will continue our trek of Mindshift Monday. On tomorrow’s trek, we will explore another wisdom quote. This 3-minute wisdom supplement will assist you in becoming healthy, wealthy, and wise each day. Thank you for joining me on this trek called life. Encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.
If you would like to listen to any of the past daily treks or read the associated journals, they are all available at Wisdom-Trek.com. You can also subscribe through iTunes or Google Play so that each day’s trek will be downloaded automatically.
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.
As we take this trek of life together, let us always:
- Live Abundantly (Fully)
- Love Unconditionally
- Listen Intentionally
- Learn Continuously
- Lend to others Generously
- Lead with Integrity
- 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!