Our story begins with the desire to step into the freedom that God has given us.

Here is the rub…in this freedom we were given the choice to choose the life we wanted to live, but overtime our choices cost us our freedom. On this path to freedom — life happens, control kicks in fueled by fear and our trust quotient with God is effected.

If you’ve stepped into the pages of God’s word you’ve most likely encountered phrases like these. “Fear not” or “Do not fear” or “Have courage”, etc.

Did you know that there are over 100 commands that Jesus offered up in scripture and 20+ of them are related to fear?

Lets start the conversation here…what are you afraid of and why are you afraid of it?

When we try to answer this in the context to the phrases in scripture above we have a tendency to put on our Superman cape and start pursuing a life without fear. Trying to live a ‘fearless’ life is a tall order.

Whats bigger in your life, your fears or your faith?

Lets dive into this excerpt from my book Heartstone. I found myself standing between fear of the unknown and the weight of my circumstances bearing down on me, which felt like the death of any remaining hope. The Israelites found themselves in such a place. They could see the expanse of dry land the Red Sea had once occupied; the mighty walls of water supernaturally held back by the awesome hand of God; and they could see that the armies of Egypt were bearing down on them. In addition to their not clearly seeing the other shore of the parted Red Sea and perhaps their apprehension that the walls of water could come crashing down on them was their fear of the unknown, and the Egyptian army was the means of their certain death. They became paralyzed by fear.

Did you catch that? What is in the balance of fear and faith? That’s right, the unknown!

Even when we start walking it out with God we enter into the same cycle as the Israelites. They witness some awesome stuff from God and they grumble and complain. We have such a short attention span when it comes to God don’t we. We don’t remember what God has done in our past and if we can’t remember God’s faithfulness in our past how are we going to trust Him with our future?

Fear is a mind killer and fear erases God’s faithfulness from our memory banks. Even though God gave them their freedom for an adventure in the unknown with Him, the Israelites were willing give it all up and to go back to slavery in Egypt because it was familiar and predictable. We all seem to find it so much easier to simply go along with the status quo, which over time actually leads to a life of heart-numbing mediocrity, and we settle for something less than God’s best.

Think about that for a minute.

We fear what we don’t know or understand and this brings us to a place of collision with the core issue — our level of trust in God.

Over time fear will establish the limits of your life, like a fence.

There are many reasons why we put up fences on our property but we do it because things within the boundaries of the fence are predictable. Inside the fence is known and outside the fence is the unknown. Tracking with me?

This is why there is so much mediocrity out there — we would rather stay in Egypt and not venture out into the unknown. Not saying this is about dreams or goals. I’m saying its about fear. The things we fear determine the boundaries of our freedom.

Ok, so how do we start this journey?

You can start by reading these seven things I’ve learned to manage my fear and then trust God in some area of your life that scares you to death. When your faith intersects with God’s faithfulness you will know God like never before. It’s in these moments where God becomes real in our lives. Does God promise a life without fear? No, but He does promise to walk it out with us.

Inside each of you there is life that is worth living to the fullest, but you have to trust God and your faith has to be bigger than your fear. Oh and one more thing…don’t fight the process, because the process requires you to leave what is known and predictable and trust a God that you cannot see.

So open the gate and walk out of your fenced in limits and begin to walk it out with God, because on the other side of fear is freedom! Jesus shares in John 10:10, I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

So really, how safe is your fence?

Are you ready to open the gate and venture out into the unknown?