It Is Just An Hour Of My Time

It took you an hour.

So when he asked what he owed you, you looked at the clock in your head and priced the hour, and the number that came out was small, and you felt it was honest.

Here is the thing I would like to put next to that.

It took you an hour because of the thirty years. A man off the street would have taken a day and a half and then done it wrong and you would have been called in afterward.

What he actually bought was not sixty minutes. He bought the difference between an hour and a day and a half, plus the certainty that it would not need doing again.

You are pricing a clock and not a capability, and an hour in expert hands has never once been the same object as an hour in anybody else's.

And I want to say plainly what this article will not do. It will not tell you what to charge and it will not give you a way to work it out.

That is arithmetic, it is yours, and the moment a stranger offers a formula for it he has started selling something.

What I want to do is take one wrong idea out of your head, because it is the idea that has been setting your prices, and it is not an idea about money at all. It is an idea about what a job is.

Let my righteousness answer for me

There is a moment where Jacob sets out the terms of what he should be paid, and he asks for something unusual to be the witness.

So shall my righteousness answer for me in time to come, when it shall come for my hire before thy face. (Genesis 30:33, King James Version)

So shall my righteousness answer for me.

He is saying: look at the work. Let what I actually did stand up and speak about what I am owed, rather than an argument between two men about it.

You are allowed to let the work speak for what it is worth, and a finished piece has never once needed a man to argue on its behalf. Genesis 30:33 says so shall my righteousness answer for me, and the Holy Spirit is the one who put the evidence of a man's own work at the center of that arrangement.

And notice that he expects this to be settled later, before a face, by looking.

It is not an appeal to how hard he worked or how long it took. It is an appeal to what is standing there at the end.

You have something standing at the end of the job that speaks about what it was, and the time on a clock has never once been the thing anybody was looking at. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets the work itself be the argument, and it is written in Genesis 30:33 that the righteousness of the work would answer in time to come.

The hour is the wrong unit

Let me say the practical thing plainly, because a man who works with his hands will want it said plainly.

An hour is a measure of your cost, not of his benefit. It tells you what the job took out of your day. It tells him nothing about what he got.

What he got was the problem gone. It would have been gone in an hour or in three, and it is equally gone either way, and a man who is faster is giving a better version of the same result rather than a smaller one.

You are handing over a better result and pricing it as a smaller one, and speed has never once been a reason to be paid less for the same thing done. The written word lets the finished work stand as the answer, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps a man's skill from being counted as a discount.

And here is the part that takes a minute to sit with.

The thirty years were not free. They cost you. They cost you the years where it took a day and a half, and the jobs you did badly and had to redo, and the man who taught you, and the time that went into it while other men were doing something easier.

That cost has already been paid. It was paid by you, in advance, over three decades, and it is sitting in your hands right now.

You have already paid for the hour being short, and a cost carried for thirty years has never once stopped being part of the work. The Holy Spirit is the one who counts the whole thing rather than the last sixty minutes of it, and Genesis 30:33 puts the reckoning on what was actually produced.

Say it, and let the work stand behind it

So the assignment, and it is a mouth assignment rather than an arithmetic one.

Say your price out loud to yourself three times, then say it to the next person who asks.

And when you say it, do not explain it. In particular, do not explain how long it took.

That is the trap men in your position always fall into. The number goes out and then a sentence follows it about how it was only a couple of hours, and the sentence takes the number back down.

You are able to say a number with nothing attached to it, and a price with no explanation behind it has never once looked like an overcharge. The Spirit of God is the one who gives a man the nerve to stop after a number, and the written word has a man let the work answer rather than arguing the case himself.

And if he asks how long it took, tell him the truth, because you are not a liar. And then say nothing else. The truth is a fact and it is not an argument against your own price unless you turn it into one.

You are able to tell the truth about the clock without apologizing for it, and an honest answer has never once been the same as a concession. The Holy Spirit is the one who holds a man steady after he has spoken, and it is written in Genesis 30 that a man asked for his work to be the witness.