The Fence That Holds Us Back

Is fear of the unknown holding you back from following your dreams? If so you’re not alone, it held me back too.

If you’re like me, you’ve taken a few steps towards your dream and even spent some time investigating it, but for some reason stopped short of actually engaging it. It’s almost like there is an invisible barrier that keeps us locked out of attaining our dream and locked in to the life we’ve settled for. The barrier is our fear and unfortunately most of us will never make it past it.

You and I aren’t the only ones to stop short of our dreams; two million of God’s chosen people stopped short of their dream too. After living in bondage for 400 years God sent Moses to deliver them and bring them into their dream land. Miraculously God opened the door, actually the Red Sea, and they moved forward toward their dream. Then, when they got close enough to actually see it, they froze in fear. I’ve always wondered what caused them to freeze in fear when God had so obviously brought them out of bondage.

Their dream seemed to come crashing down in the investigation stage. When the majority of the spies Moses sent over to check things out came back with the bad report, their mission was aborted. The sheer size of the giants that occupied their inheritance scared them away and their lack of faith in God sentenced them to forty years of wandering.

Often when we begin to investigate the place that God wants to take us, we realize that there are giant obstacles standing in our way too. If I’m honest… it’s been my lack of faith and the giants that occupy my dream land that have stopped me too.

So, how do we get past our fear and make it to our own Promised Land? Lucky for us we can look at the two Israelites who did make it through, Joshua and Caleb. These two men were part of the twelve spies who had seen the giants first hand. They knew the size of the obstacles and yet they believed God was able to deliver. Their faith never wavered, even in the forty years of wandering.

No matter how long we’ve been wandering or how big the giants are that we face, we have to remember that our God is able to deliver them into our hands. If you and I remain faithful and don’t doubt what God can do… there is no fence that can hold us back.

PS: I’ll meet you on the other side!