Many of your have asked me how "all this Scotland stuff" started. And I generally - believe it or not - give you the shorter version of the story. Hard to believe, I know. So in case you weren't privileged enough to have me talk your ear right off in response to that question, I will give some more of the details here now. Though truthfully, the details are likely to come bit by bit in different blog posts, or you'll all lose interest and start telling me you're enjoying this new blog while secretly reading the title and first paragraph and hoping that carries you through any potential conversations we might have about it.
Anyway, moving on....
So 'all this Scotland stuff" really started almost exactly 14 years ago. I was at a listening prayer conference put on by Brad Jersak (author of Can You Hear Me?) and as part of the exercises of learning how to listen to God's voice in prayer, we were given a series of simple questions to ask Him. One of the questions was, "Where do You want to meet with me, God? Where is our safe place together?" And when I asked God that question, I immediately got a picture. It was a picture of a rocky cliff (from the perspective of standing on the top of the cliff looking out, not looking at it from below), and the rocks had grassy parts all around and in them, and there were big rocks on either side of the place on the cliff at which I was looking in my picture. And as soon as I saw the picture I knew it was the highlands of Scotland. That in itself was extremely odd, as I didn't recall ever even seeing pictures of the highlands of Scotland, nor had I ever before had any particular interest or exposure to Scotland or Scottish things. True, my family heritage does partially come from Scotland, but it was generations ago and never something that was given more than a passing comment in our home. Nevertheless, this was the picture I got. When I went home after the conference, I looked up information on the Scottish highlands, and sure enough, they looked exactly like the landscape of the picture I had seen in my vision.
After that series of questions at the conference, we were then put in partners and given an opportunity to practice listening prayer for another person. I was partnered with my friend Sabrina, though I hadn't told her anything of the vision I had in answer to the earlier exercises. What she heard God say for me was along the lines of (and I'm slightly paraphrasing here, since the actual words are recorded but somewhere in a box in Vancouver), "I will give you paint and canvas and everything you need to step into your safe place with Me." And all of a sudden I felt that God was doing something very large.
Over the course of the next number of weeks or months (I don't actually recall which), it felt all of a sudden like everything was about Scotland. Raffles had trips to Scotland as their prizes. People mentioned Scotland in casual conversation. I saw Scottish flags everywhere and heard Scottish accents almost as often. It might seem trivial, but there was an intensity and frequency to all of it - coming on top of feeling like I'd never heard anyone mention Scotland before - that I could tell was God calling me to pay attention. And so began the knowledge that God was telling me that He was going to take me to Scotland. For what, I had no idea. When? Even less of an idea. But the seed had been sown and received into fallow ground. Now the task at hand was to believe and to wait and to pray.
That's how this highland journey all began.
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