Ten years ago Marilyn and I were fasting and praying about changing our lives. Jewel was 12 and we were thinking about where she would go to school after she was done with home schooling. I had been on the road for ten years, driving back and forth between Greensboro and Durham where I worked at Duke University. It was time. Where would we spend the next ten years of our lives?

The decision was hard. I loved Duke, but I had to acknowledge the drive was physically and mentally harder and harder to take. We had thought of moving down to Durham, but the city had the highest crime rate and the worst schools in the state at the time. It was also a very expensive place to live. With three major Universities and an international research park in the area, real estate was through the roof.

Plus, I knew it was time to move on. I had a strange premonition about it. The first year I was at Duke we won the national championship in basketball. I said at the time that I’d know it was time to leave when we won it again. In 2010 we won it again. About that same time Marilyn began to say to me, “Ten years on the road is long enough!” Interestingly, around that time we visited Monticello, and Marilyn observed: “I like Charlottesville.”

“Ok.” I thought, “we both love the mountains, and Charlottesville lies at the feet of the Blue Ridge Mountains in central Virginia. It’s not too far from Greensboro where I grew up (and my parents still live there); the University of Virginia is there, and I like working for a university.” Also, my Dad’s two favorite schools were Duke and UVA.

So, as with any big decision in our lives, Marilyn and I decided to ask the Lord what to do. So that’s how we came to be fasting; fasting helps you hear clearly, and we needed to be sure about this.

Besides UVA, there is almost no other serious employer in this city of 40,000. This posed bit of a problem in that UVA usually drew its pool of employees from within the community. It was difficult for an outsider to break in. That being said, I searched UVA employment and found a job listing in my field. The only drawback was that it was a step down from being a manager to being a technician.

I was undeterred: God and family first. I liked the status of management but the hours were long. I worked at least a weekend a month and many late evenings as well. I also regretted not being able to actually “get my hands dirty” anymore. Management was regretfully a “hands off” proposition. By nature I’m a tinkerer, and I missed it.

So I submitted a resume and got an interview. An offer was made and now things had turned very serious. This was really happening.

I really wanted to hear from God, but I was having trouble getting out of my own way. Some friends of ours pastor a charismatic church in Greensboro and they offered to help. They were training their members in intercession and prophetic prayer through a program developed by Bethel ministries. I have healthy skepticism because I know there are counterfeit gifts out in the world, but I do believe in the genuine gifts of the Spirit (I Corinthians 12: 4-11). So when they offered to have their members hold a prayer session for me I agreed.

A prayer session of this type happens this way. Several people volunteer to seek the Lord on behalf of a person, usually someone they have not met so as not to be prejudiced by relationship. Then they deliver what they have heard from the Lord to that person in an appointed session.

The night I went to the session I was pretty stressed. I drove in from Durham (which took an hour in pretty fierce traffic) and went straight to the church. They sat me in a chair and gathered in a circle around me. They used a flip camera to record the session, and I am very grateful they did. It is difficult to remember what happens at these times and it is great to be able to refer back to the recording later.

They had not been told why I was coming for prayer on that Monday. They prayed through the weekend — expecting to hear from the Lord, and each one wrote down what they were going to say to me. One woman, Kathy Brushingan, whom I had never met, was the fourth person to speak. She told me she saw me with an “Excalibur” sword, which I saw as a broadsword. She said the Lord was pleased with my integrity of heart, and a few moments later she shocked me by asking me this question:

“The thing I kept getting for you was 524, I don’t know if that number means anything to you or not: five twenty four?”

I was shocked, but I replied immediately, “Absolutely, do you know what 524 on a phone pad is? ….. J-A-H: JAH! Yes, it absolutely means something to me!”

What it meant to me was this: when we were given new phones at work in 1987, they were quite sophisticated networked phones with built-in voicemail. They were password protected. We had to have a minimum of 3 letters in our passcode. I chose 5-2-4, specifically because it spelled JAH from Psalm 68 “Sing unto God, sing praises to His name: extol Him that rideth upon the heavens by His name JAH, and rejoice before Him.”

No one on earth knew that. I had not even told my wife that passcode. The only other person that knew it was JAH Himself. If I didn’t tell Kathy Brushingan what those numbers meant to me, the only other person that could have revealed it to her was God.

There were seven people in that group and they all encouraged me with what they had heard, but when I think back on that prayer time, it’s God’s message to me through Kathy that means the most to me.

What He was simply saying is “Ric, I know you, I have your number, you honored Me in a simple way, in secret; watch how I honor you openly.”

A month and four days later I started my new job at UVA. It’s been challenging, but through it all I have leaned on the knowledge that God placed us here and opened a new chapter in our lives.

Again we are seeking Him for His will and direction. A big part of this is that Jewel is applying to and interviewing with ten doctoral programs for OT. She has been accepted by six so far, but has yet to make her final decision. Therefore, in the spring or summer she will head off to her new life. We are excited for her and waiting to see what He has in store for us.

The question remains, does God have your number? The answer is: Be assured that He does.