Whatever You Think

They asked what you charge, and you heard yourself say it before you could stop.

Whatever you think. Whatever is fair. Do not worry about it. Honestly, whatever.

And then a small sick feeling, because you knew as it left your mouth that you had just handed a decision about your own week to somebody who does not know what the work involves, and who will now guess, and will guess low, and will not mean anything by it.

I am not going to tell you what to charge. This site names no figures and gives no financial advice of any kind, and it is not going to start.

What I want to look at is the flinch, because the flinch is the actual subject, and you already know roughly what the number should be.

He said it as an instruction

There is a line where Jesus is sending people out to work, and He deals with the money question directly and without embarrassment.

And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house. (Luke 10:7, King James Version)

The laborer is worthy of his hire.

Notice the setting. This is not a passage about commerce. He is sending people out on ministry, into a situation where they are dependent on hospitality, and He tells them plainly to eat what is given and not to feel awkward about it, because a person who works deserves to be kept.

He says it as a settled fact rather than as an argument. There is no defense of it and no qualification.

Luke 10:7 puts the worthiness of a worker beyond discussion, in the middle of an instruction from the Lord Himself, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets somebody hear that about their own hours.

You are worthy of your hire, and it has never once been something you needed to argue for. Luke 10:7 states it as a settled fact in the middle of a sending, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a plain sentence about worth land on a person who cannot say a number.

Where the flinch comes from

Let me name what is actually happening in the half second before you say whatever you think, because Luke 10:7 has already settled the worth and the Holy Spirit is not the one hesitating.

You are not calculating. You know the number. What is happening is that you are anticipating a face.

You are imagining the other person's expression when they hear it. A slight pause, or an eyebrow, or the particular silence people make when something costs more than they expected. And rather than risk that, you hand them the pricing and take the certainty.

And underneath that is something older, which is a belief that asking for money for yourself is a form of taking. Most people who cannot price their work can price somebody else's instantly and generously, which is how you know it is not about arithmetic.

Luke 10:7 removes the whole question from the moral realm by making it a matter of fact, and the Holy Spirit is the one who separates a price from a personality.

You are not taking anything, and being paid has never once been the same as extracting. The written word says the laborer is worthy of his hire, which places worth in the work rather than in the asker's nerve, and the Spirit of God is the one who lifts a moral weight off a practical question.

Undercharging is not humility

I want to say one hard thing, gently, because nobody says it to people in your position.

Charging too little is not humility, and it does not help anybody.

It does not help you, obviously. But it also does not help the person paying, because a thing priced below what it costs to do is a thing you will eventually resent, and resentment leaks into work in ways nobody can name but everybody can feel.

And it does not help the next person doing your kind of work, who will now be compared to a number that was never sustainable.

There is nothing holy in being underpaid. Luke 10:7 does not commend it, does not mention it, and treats the keeping of a worker as ordinary, and the Holy Spirit is the one who can take the false virtue out of it.

You are not being more spiritual by charging less, and there has never once been virtue in it. Luke 10:7 treats a worker being kept as unremarkable rather than as a concession, and the Spirit of God is the one who removes a false holiness from a practical decision.