I knelt down to pray.

Suddenly my surroundings disappeared, and I became caught up in a vision.

It's like I was taken back in time a couple of hundred years - to before a British penal colony was established at Botany Bay.

I saw an aboriginal man, wearing traditional clothing, walking through the scrub. He broke through a clearing and stepped onto the open beach - I could almost feel the breeze as he looked out over the ocean, feeling carefree, as if nothing had changed for centuries, on the east coast of the land.

Then he noticed something never seen before - bright beams of light coming over the horizon.

He knew it wasn't the sunrise, because it was already high noon. Whatever could it be?

As the light-beams became brighter and brighter, his attention became transfixed, full of anticipation. He knew that whatever the source of the light was, it was soon going to appear over the horizon.

Then it appeared - a bright, shining city arose over the horizon. His feelings of awe intensified as the city moved closer and closer until it came and stood directly above him. He gazed up, overwhelmed with peace and joy.

Then the city lowered itself and landed right on the land. The city was so large its walls occupied the entire continent from sea to sea with barely a centimetre of land to spare outside its walls.

Inside the city were buildings - some dwellings had black windows, others had white windows. I looked to see if white meant good and black meant evil - but it didn't, it just meant different.

And the vision ended.

I knew straightaway what it meant: God was up to something good!

And that is something we can all celebrate about Australia's history.

"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (II Corinthians 4:6).