How does one cross a point of no return? First of all, one would need to know that there was such a point and where that point was. I was confronted with just this reality for myself on a Saturday evening, May 5th, 2007, when I was fellowshipping with other believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, while in Scotland. The Lord had spoken so clearly to me about the weeks of ministry ahead in Scotland prior to my coming and shortly after my arrival. Right after I had arrived in this wonderful nation, the Lord Jesus revealed to me my first insight for which I was to be ready for. It was simply this: He showed me that I would come to a point, a line, in which I would have to make a decision, a decision that carried the weight of crossing over a point of no return.
I had no clear idea when, where, how or at what point this moment of decision would come across my path. All I knew was that this would in deed take place, that it was important. Therefore I needed to be ready for it. Immediately I began praying into this forth coming event in my life.
In His timing, this point of decision did come to pass. The Lord Jesus, in a way I could not have imagined, brought things together, with such clarity, power and yet such subtly, that I knew I was at His specific place, time and moment, the moment of my decision. Would I cross over, or would I choose to play it safe, staying where I already was?
It was a cool day, with on and off again showers. I was due to go up to Inverness this day. Inverness is on the Loch Ness side of Scotland. I had not yet been there, physically, although I had been in that area in the Spirit, in prophetic intercession and declaration for and over the nation and people of Scotland.
There had been some rather fluctuating versions of how my travel to Inverness was to line up. Finally, Richard and Susan came to believe that the Lord would have them to go up to Inverness themselves. They also sensed the leading of the Lord to offer me a ride up with them. This I gladly accepted. Later this became ever so clear that it all was the Lord’s doing. He had more in store than my simply getting from point A to point B.
So, they picked me up and we were off. We were to get on the A9 primary road to Inverness, which we eventually did. This road then took us to Perth and onto to Inverness. I had been in Perth earlier in my trips and even earlier in this trip for ministry. Just outside of Perth is a place called Inveralmond. It is a place where the Almond River joined another river. Soon after we crossed over the river on the bridge, Susan asked me if I wanted to go down to the river. As she asked, I had a spiritual reaction. Let’s just leave it as simple as that. We all took this reaction as, well, as we were to go there. So, we turned around and headed back to Inveralmond.
We got off the A9 and began the journey of finding an access to the River. This was rather interesting as we had absolutely no idea of how or where we were to go to get down to the river. The whole of the river area is so very heavily overgrown with evidently very limited access points. So, we prayed and the Lord eventually led us to a newer built up housing area that we thought might be close to the river itself. We asked someone who was working outside of their home just how we might be able to get to down to the Almond River. Good News, we were very close. We were only a block or so away from a very short path to the river, where there was another path along the Almond River itself.
As we got out of the car, we headed the short way down to the river. We then turned right down the path along the river. I suddenly felt like we should turn around and go the other direction. Then suddenly, without anyone saying a word, we all just stopped, right in our tracks. After a second or two, I said, I think we should go back the other way and we did. As we turned around, my spirit became almost childishly joyful and expectant. I wanted to run, leap and skip down the path, though I did not, self-control also being of the Spirit 
.
As we kept walking, I became aware of the Lord’s Angels being present with us and especially on the other side of the Almond River. This only raised my expectations. We went a little further and I saw an opening through the brush where I could actually go down to the Almond River, which then I went through.
It was an area in which there were rocks and concrete works that looked a little like planks that went out into the river and created a little dam, although it wasn’t all the way across the river. Behind the concrete planks, the water was very still, but not stagnant. On the other side, where the planks were not, the water rushed through little rapids following its way down the course of the river and then opening up more fully. The concrete planks created a clear path for me to walk upon, which I freely did. They also created an all too real and very distinctive line across most of the river.
The Lord’s presence intensified upon me and suddenly I knew that I was at the time of decision. This was something that I was not, nor had been this day, thinking at all about. Yet, I now, I suddenly found myself actually standing on the site of this very point of decision, the very line in which I would have to make my choice, to cross over or not.
Who would have guessed that it would be here, now, and along a river called Almond. You see, this wasn’t just a river. It was river that shares my last name, Mc (meaning: son of) Almond, or put together, the son of Almond. It is also was the name, at this time, of our ministry, Almond Branch Ministries Int’l (ABMI). This was clearly the place of the Lord’s choosing, His connection, a place of the Lord’s timing, the anointed moment of the Lord, for it literally had my name written all over it.
We hadn’t just arrived here, in fact we had already passed through this area and we were headed to Inverness. I had had a certain curiosity as we did so, yet I quietly figured we couldn’t take the time to explore the river area. I didn’t want to presume upon Richard, Susan and their kindness in taking me to where I needed to go. So, I said nothing. Yet, the truth be told, I had wanted to come to this river ever since I first had been through this place the previous year. I was literally drawn to it the very first time I had ever seen it. Little did I know, however, that Richard and Susan were more than willing to do these kinds of things, especially where the Lord seemed to be in them. In fact this is not at all unusual for them as I would discover some time later, even more so.
Then suddenly Susan spoke up and asked me if I wanted to go to the River? If she hadn’t, I would have let it go and missed this opportunity. Isn’t it interesting how important team ministry is in the things of the Spirit? Anyway, thank you Susan for your sensitivity to the leading of the Spirit and to you Richard for your willingness to make on the spot changes in direction. So, we were led by the Holy Spirit to this place, at this point in time, and at this moment, all of His choosing. Now, however, I suddenly found myself at the very moment of decision the Lord had warned me of. Would I choose to go forth, crossing this point of no return into whatever lay ahead, or not? Would I abandon myself to the currents of the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to take me where ever He would, for His greater glory, honor and praise?
I looked up the river to where my life had been. It had been coming down to this point all along. I had come to this point where I had been in an extended season of waiting upon the Lord Jesus Christ, in prayer, intercession, in the Word and having a relatively quiet ministry. Its been reflective of a more passive, yet not inactive, season of life, all in the Lord Jesus Christ for the previous three years.
As I turned to look down the river, I saw the rushing water over the little rapids and further down, a bend in the river that I could not see around. It was reflective of our coming to a place in life and ministry that would lead us to a turn that I could not yet see around nor knew where it was going to take me/us. It was reflective of a more turbulent season filled with bumps, rocks and unknowns all leading us to a place where He had prepared for us but which we had no idea in ourselves where it was. It was reflective of His leading us into that which we would have never chosen in the natural nor to a path so clearly leading us away from where our hearts would desire to take us. It was His path, chosen by Him for us where in we have sought so earnestly to follow Him into and along for His greater glory, honor, and praise.
On an earlier note, before I came across to Scotland, the Lord had told me one day in prayer, to take His hand and hold on tight. I then took His hand, firmly holding on. I also had a clear sense that this meant things were going to pick up speed and that I would need to be holding on, firmly holding onto His hand through this next season of our lives.
For me, I want to want, all that He desires for us, through us and in us. I want to want, whatever He is wanting. I so desperately hunger for Him and for more of Him that I do not desire to remain safely in the smoother waters of where I have been in the Lord Jesus Christ, even though these too, had been arrived at as I had simply followed Him into them. No, we were going forward. It was time and I personally was ready to move forward in the Lord Jesus Christ. I was clearly going to cross over this line, this point, of no return. 
So, I turned and looked down the Almond River into my uncertain and unknown future, as I did I then purposefully and deliberately stepped forward, crossing over the line upon which I had been standing, knowing in my heart of hearts, that there would be no turning back from this very act, my deliberately choosing to cross this point of no return. Therefore, I stepped forward and Susan took my picture, marking the event of this, my choice. We then left this point behind us, along the Almond River, the point of crossing over, to which now, there would be no returning, in the Spirit. A decision had been called for in the Lord Jesus Christ. A decision had been made in the Spirit of and unto the Lord Jesus Christ. All that was left now, was for us to begin to live and walk it out, discovering along the way what all this had and would mean.
