God of All Wonders!

If you are a technically-minded person, chances are you are going to be very interested in this article. This article contains numbers that God gave me in a dream, and how these numbers were used in some amazing ways. What God did was truly mind-boggling!

Salary Preparations

On July 11, 2005, I had a dream. In the dream, I was at an office building that looked like a house. I said that I thought the job was worth 12 times 5, but a man having authority said to me, Not 5, but 7! Then, I calculated 12 times 8 = 96, which I deliberated on for some time (this was seconds in the dream, but represented a longer period of time in real life). The man with authority had said 12 times 7, but I had said to another man, 12 times 8.

What a strange dream! As it turns out, I was being prepared by God for salary negotiations at a company. Yet I had not even applied to this company, nor had I received any communication from them.

In the dream, I was given some round numbers (I did not realize the numbers were rounded, but later it would become evident). 12 times 5 meant 12 months times $5,000 per month. Even though this amount equals $60,000, it was not stated that way, because the 5 was rounded. In real life, I was later offered $65,000 per year. That’s not $60,000, but if you had to represent $65,000 using the notation given in the dream, you would have to use 12 times 5. If you chose 12 times 4, that would be too low (12 x $4000 = $48,000). If you chose 12 times 6, that would be too high (12 x $6000 = $72,000). Simple math shows us that $65,000 falls into the 12 times 5 category.

When they later offered me the job for $65,000 per year, I did not accept it, because the man with authority had said, Not 5, but 7! In other words, I was not to accept 12 times 5. Instead, I was to accept 12 times 7. Now 12 times $7,000 is $84,000. But since the 7 was also a rounded number, it was not referring to precisely $84,000, but a possible range of numbers between $78,000 and $89,999.99 per year (simple math shows this).

Furthermore, 12 times 8 = 96 meant that there were going to be salary negotiations. In order to arrive at 12 times 7, I was going to have to aim for 12 times 8. This is a negotiating strategy. It is used in business all the time. The best negotiator is God, and he was telling me how to do it. God’s negotiating strategy would work, but I would be up against a corporate giant named Rogers Communications. Would this corporate giant budge for a “little guy” like me? They would if God was behind it!

Less Than 2 Months Later

Less than 2 months later (on August 31). I received an unexpected phone call from a man named Robert from Alcea Technologies, a recruiting firm. Robert wanted to know if I would be interested in a 4-week consulting job writing software. I said I was. The next day, I was interviewed at a place called BitHeads. BitHeads had hired Alcea Technologies to find a software developer, but BitHeads themselves had also been outsourced by another company, namely TimeICR, and the next day, on September 2, 2005, I started working at TimeICR.

Two weeks into my 4-week contract with Alcea, I was approached by a TimeICR executive named Ian, who asked me if I would be interested in a full-time position. In May of 2004, however, more than a year before any of this took place, my friend Jim had a dream about me and about this big-named lawyer named Rogers. In Jim’s dream, this man “Rogers” was strategizing in order to use Jim and me to fulfill his purposes.

As it turns out, TimeICR was purchased by Rogers Communications just before I signed on as a full-time worker with them. God had actually given Jim the name of the company that purchased TimeICR even before anyone at TimeICR knew! God was going to use Jim and me to pray together, in order to fulfill his purposes.

Why was this man Rogers pictured as a big-named lawyer? I believe there is a double-entendre here. First, the biggest named lawyer of all is God, for God is the ultimate lawgiver and judge. Furthermore, the legal experts in the Bible were those who were in charge of God’s law. The Bible says that God is the Judge of the entire earth. It makes sense that he would be the “big-named lawyer.” Calling him Rogers means he has ultimate authority over Rogers Communications and can choose to intervene any time he wants. It is just like we read in the Bible,

The king’s heart is in Yahweh’s hand like the watercourses. He turns it wherever he desires. (Proverbs 21:1)

You might be asking, “If God can do whatever he wants, why does he not fix all of the world’s problems?” Good question! Jesus will indeed come back one day, even as we read in the Bible. But right now, God is currently giving people time to repent and to trust in him. God will never force anyone to trust in him. He is not like that.

The Bible says,

The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but is patient with us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

God wants to see who will choose to love him, from their heart, because that’s what real love is. Real love is not forced or coerced. What God did in sending me into TimeICR (later purchased by Rogers), through BitHeads and Alcea, is nothing short of a miracle.

Negotiations

When I received the offer of full-time employment from TimeICR, sure enough they offered me 12 times 5. And by this, I’m referring to the $65,000 that I previously mentioned, the 5 being rounded. Also, the building where TimeICR was situated was just like a house — just like I had seen in the dream!

I remembered the dream.

I realized I could not accept this offer, because God had told me to reject it. Therefore, I entered into salary negotiations.

Initially, I spoke to my boss Ian alone on the matter. That was before I received the official offer of $65,000 from the company.

Ian said to me, “How much do you want?”

I thought to myself, The dream said 12 times 8.

I did not immediately realize that the number I had been given in the dream was rounded. Yet I also felt prevented in my spirit from asking for 12 times 8 which equals $96,000. Therefore, I asked for $90,000.

I went back to my desk and thought about the discrepancy between $96,000 and $90,000. I think this is the point in the dream where I deliberated on 12 times 8. It happened in real life. I deliberated on it!

I was puzzled.

Had I failed by not asking for 12 times 8 which equals $96,000? Later, I would realize that $90,000 was just inside the 12 times 8 range. The 12 times 8 range actually starts at $90,000!

The reason we know that the 12 times 8 range starts at $90,000 is because if you took off one penny and rendered it $89,999.99, that could no longer be represented by the rounded number 12 times 8. You would have to use 12 times 7. Simple math shows this.

In case you are not convinced, let’s just do the math. $90,000 divided by 12 equals exactly 7.5 thousand dollars. This rounds up to 8 when using standard rounding notation. However, $89,999.99 divided by 12 equals 7.499999 thousand dollars and this rounds down to 7 when using standard rounding notation.

In the end, the company upped their original offer of $65,000/year to $80,000/year, which was in line with what the Lord had shown me. He had said 12 times 7 in the dream, which represented between $78,000 and $89,999.99. Even at that time, when they offered me the $80,000, I was still puzzled, not realizing that the numbers God had given to me were rounded. Only later, when I crunched all of the numbers, did I fully understand it.

The Big Fish

On November 3, 2005, which was exactly two weeks before I would be presented with the full-time contract, God gave me another dream. This dream I call the “big fish” dream. The “big fish” was actually a reference to my boss Ian. Ian was a business executive, and the expression, “big fish,” can be used as an expression, meaning, “business executive.”

In the dream, the Lord showed me that the big fish was about to move. Before the big fish moved, I had to run quickly! There was an important element of timing. In the dream, I saw a big fish of about 200 feet long by about 30 feet high. It was a very big fish! There was no mistaking the imagery! The big fish was parallel to this wall, and so it was like a 200 foot wall next to the “big fish wall,” forming a corridor. My job was to run quickly between the two walls so that I would not be crushed when the big fish moved.

In other words, so that God’s plans would not fail, the Lord was telling me I had to move quickly. Little did I realize that my boss Ian was just about to move to another company! Ian had not told anyone that he was leaving, but God knew. Ian had a critical role to play in signing me on with the company. And if Ian left before I signed the contract, the contract would not get signed.

You will recall that I had previously been offered $65,000. The company did not want to budge. The only one who could make this number budge, from the company perspective, was Ian.

Ian was not the final decision-maker in the process. He did not have the authority to decide my salary. Another person had that authority. It was a woman. During contract negotiations, I met with Ian and with this woman, who was in charge of finances. We were all in the same room together. Three times during the negotiations, she said to me, “If I offer you $65,000 right now, will you take it?”

Three times, I responded, “No, I will not take it.”

All this was to secure the amount that the Lord had shown me more than three months earlier. For I had already been told to refuse the low-ball offer.

You will recall that $65,000 falls into the 12 times 5 range. But the man with authority had said, Not 5, but 7! Therefore, I could not accept their low-ball offer. Even if my life depended upon it, I would not budge from what the Lord had shown me.

Ian was the key to securing the higher salary, because we had already discussed the higher salary in his office privately. Without Ian’s testimony, to persuade the finance person, there would be no way to secure the higher salary. Hence, the “big fish” dream was given by God to tell me to move quickly before Ian left the company.

God’s Leverage

Someone might ask, why did they even feel the need to negotiate with me at all? Why not find another developer? At that point, I was too valuable to the company. They knew they could not find someone to easily replace me. Thus it was that I was in a good spot to negotiate. And it was God’s will that I negotiate, as well. God had placed me there for that very moment in order to bring about his purposes.

God wanted leverage on this company, and was able to do it through me. It was only a temporary leverage, because after I completed the work that I was originally hired to do, they laid me off, to make way for other less expensive employees. At that time, I heard that a new-hire was getting paid about $42,000 per year, or about half of the $80,000 that I eventually agreed on. Therefore, they could lay me off, and get about “two for one” in return.

Not only did God perfectly lead me through this tangled web of getting exactly what he wanted from the company, but even the layoff date was perfectly timed according to his will. I will show you how this is the case. It all has to do with the 12 in the 12 x 7. Why did God show it to me like that? Why didn’t he just show me, in the dream, $65,000 as the offer, $90,000 as the counter-offer, and $80,000 as the final salary? That would have made life so simple! I would hardly even have had to think about it. Imagine if life was that simple. But it’s not. Life requires faith. And the Bible says,

Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

So then, in life, you are going to need to exercise faith. When you exercise it according to God’s will, you will see great things happening.

When God showed me the 12 times 7, this contained more than just the rounded number 7. It also contained the exact number 12. As it turns out, 12 was the exact number of months, to the very day, that I would be paid for. This was slightly less than trivial to figure out, but eventually, with the Lord’s help, I resolved it.

On the day I got laid off (which was June 28, 2006), the Lord spoke to me and said, “Do the numbers.” So I stayed up until about 2 a.m., crunching numbers on my computer, as I carefully reviewed everything the Lord had shown me. What I discovered was truly amazing. Even the specific date I was laid off was according to God’s exact plan.

I will take you through the numbers now, so you can understand them completely, so that you can declare with me that God is truly amazing. Even as we read, God speaking through the prophet Isaiah,

“I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done. I say: My counsel will stand, and I will do all that I please.” (Isaiah 46:10)

Now, let’s crunch the numbers!

Crunching the Numbers

You have already seen how 12 times 5, 12 times 7, and 12 times 8, fits into all that happened in terms of salary negotiations. What is not clear is why God stated it that way. I will show you one of the reasons he stated it that way.

I originally began working for TimeICR (on a 4-week contract with Alcea) on September 2, 2005. The end date of that 4-week contract was September 29, 2005. Then, I agreed to an extension from September 30 to October 28 (another 4 weeks). I had the “big-fish” dream on November 3, 2005, and two weeks later signed a full-time contract with Rogers (who by this time had purchased TimeICR).

Thus, it was the third week of November that I signed the contract. The original offer of $65,000 was backdated to Monday, October 31, 2005. And that’s because the previous working day, Friday, October 28, 2005, was the last day of my contract with Alcea. They needed to pay me for the work I had put in for almost three full weeks. So they backdated the contract to October 31, 2005.

But when I refused the offer, necessitating a new offer, they said they could no longer backdate the new contract to October 31. They said that for some reason they could not rewrite the same contract with the new offer in it having the same start date. Somehow, that was against company policy. They said they would need to push the start date to November 1. Thus, they never paid me for October 31.

My last day of work was June 28, 2006. I also received 2 weeks pay “in lieu of notice” covering the period June 29 to July 12, 2006. I was also provided with an 8-week severance package, covering July 13 to September 6, 2006. Since I began work (through Alcea, the contracting agency) on September 2, 2005, you will note that the entire payment period, September 2, 2005 to September 6, 2006, represents one year plus three days of work for a regular full-time employee. This includes labour day which, which for a regular full-time employee, is paid. But since I did not get paid for October 31, 2005, you would have to remove one of those days, which would lower my end date to September 5, 2006.

But alas, when I was working for Alcea for those 8 weeks on contract, they never paid me for labour day (September 5, 2005) or for (Canadian) Thanksgiving (October 10, 2005). That’s because contract work and full-time work are billed differently. You cannot just add them together. That would be like adding apples and oranges. First, you would need to normalize them, because contract work does not include statutory holidays. You normalize the data by removing unpaid statutory holidays —in this case, two more days to accommodate for those unpaid days (Labour Day and Thanksgiving). This now normalizes the end-date by two more paid days, bringing us down to September 1, 2006 as the normalized end date. This is the corrected end date. From September 2, 2005 to September 1, 2006 is exactly 12 months to the day. This means that the 12 in 12 x 7 was actually referring to the exact number of months that I would be paid for. But wait, there is even more.

Bruce Nolan

After I had signed the full-time contract with Rogers, and before I was laid off, I went to visit a video rental store, which was called Blockbuster video. The Lord impressed upon me very strongly to pray before searching for a video. It was a strong burden. So I prayed fervently for about 10 minutes, just sitting there in my car. Then, I went inside the store and asked a sales associate what he recommended as a good video. He recommended, “Bruce Almighty.” Bruce Almighty is about a man named Bruce Nolan who is given authority by God to rule the universe for one week. I watched the movie, and remembered the name, Bruce Nolan.

On the Monday, I walked into work. Ian, who had been my boss, was now leaving and saying goodbye. He introduced me to the man who was taking his place. He said, “I would like you to meet Bruce Nolan.” Bruce Nolan? The name was familiar! Bruce Nolan was now the new VP of Business Operations. He was officially my new boss. In the movie, Bruce Nolan had been given authority by God. In real life, this other Bruce Nolan had been given authority by God to be my new boss. In the course of time, this same Bruce Nolan would be the very person who would be responsible for laying me off. This was all by God’s providential design. That same day was June 28, 2006.

Now here is something very interesting. If Bruce Nolan had told me that my time was up one day earlier, then the math which God had shown me in the dream would not have worked out. Similarly, if he had told me one day later, then the math which God had shown me in the dream would also not have worked out.

Because I was laid off on that day, when you factored in the 2-weeks pay in lieu of notice, plus the 8-weeks severance, and when you normalized the data from contract to full-time, I would end up being paid for exactly 12 months to the very day. This would fulfill what God had shown me in the dream of July 11, 2005, more than 11 months earlier, when God showed me the 12 times 5, the 12 times 7, and the 12 times 8.

David writes,

“Many, Yahweh, my God, are the wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts which are toward us. They cannot be declared back to you. If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be counted.” (Psalm 40:4-5)

Therefore, what I have written is just a small anecdote of how glorious God is. He is truly amazing in every respect. He knows you. He understands you. And he’s calling you into relationship with himself through his Son Jesus Christ.

It is Jesus who said,

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” (John 14:6)

He also said,

“The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)

Today, if you have not trusted in Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, I want to encourage to do that.

“Whoever believes in him,” the Bible says, “will not be disappointed.” (See Romans 10:11)