“Give freely without begrudging it, and the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.”

As I write this, the U.S. and China continue to go back and forth with increasing tariffs on this and that product being imported and exported.  At the end of the day, with enough products being “tariffed” it might end up right back where we started, but with everything costing the consumer more at the purchase point. What we do know from all this back and forth that uncertainty is created and each of our businesses are not without vulnerability to larger economic forces that are outside of our control.  The tariff battle has been started, so let’s not fool ourselves that it will disappear any time soon, but instead plan and work towards what we can do to keep our heads down and below the battle that is taking place above our heads.

It is possible that we also are involved in personal tariff battles.  Consider for a moment that we each provide services to others, all day long.  We provide a service of expertise to our co-workers.  We distribute advice and counsel.  We produce reports, presentations, creative works, etc.  We might also be producing something physical with our hands.  Whatever it is that is our work output, it gets traded somehow. Obviously, it is traded economically otherwise our employer wouldn’t pay us.  They have already decided what that work is worth and then trade with us for that amount.  But, what about the part of us that we provide to others in our workplace where they need what we can provide them?  Are we putting our own tariffs on that trade?  Put another way, are we expecting a favor in return?  Are we looking for more from them than for what we give back?  Do we tax others with their time and energy when we give them less than what we expect from them?  It’s hard for me to think that it is God’s way for us to place our own tariffs on others, when He gave so freely of Himself to us.  It just isn’t His way,  nor then should it be ours.

Deuteronomy 15:10 (New Living Translation)