On the move again

We are moving – and staying. Moving from where we currently live, Glasgow, to stay where I’ve been working: Edinburgh. The most beautiful place I’ve ever lived, a city with an inspiring heritage, huge influence, and a great church with so many wonderful people and so much potential.

The journey we’ve been on to get to this decision was markedly different to how God called me up to Scotland in the first place. That was a story dominated by prophetic and ‘coincidental’ moments, this was less spectacular. We prayed loads, talked even more, looked and listened for God as best we knew how but the moment of decision was ultimately very low-key: there wasn’t much that made for an exciting story, we just know that this is where we’re meant to be for the foreseeable future – and that’s the really exciting part.

The elders at King’s Church have offered to pay me for three days’ work a week, so I’ll be continuing and developing the things that I’ve been doing voluntarily for the past year: working with students, preaching and teaching, as well as taking on a few more leadership responsibilities.

When I’m asked about how I’m feeling about all of this, my immediate response is relief. For the first time since I started going out with Debbie, nearly two and half years ago, the main parts of my life are all going to be in the same place. I’m really looking forward to the coherence of that, to the opportunity to give myself fully to one place because that’s where I fully am. Now that we’re married, and I know what I’m going to be doing next, and we’ve found a flat that suits us in just about the perfect location, the tensions of change and dislocation that I’ve felt for a long time are starting to ease, and a sense of adventure is stirring again.