September 10, 2026 · 5 min read
The 1648 Cure for Money Anxiety
“Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul.”
It Is Well With My Soul, Horatio Spafford, 1873
From Dan's Desk
Canada spent the week talking about prices. Counter-tariffs landed Monday on more than 700 American products, and every headline since has wanted you rattled about your fridge and your grocery cart. So this issue holds two things side by side: a plain answer on what the tariffs will actually cost your household, and a book from 1648 that diagnoses the itch underneath the rattle.
One of them will still matter in ten years.
From Wise and Faithful
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment Is 400 Years Old and Still Hasn't Been Topped
Last week I promised an honest review of the most useful thing I have ever read on money anxiety. Here it is. Jeremiah Burroughs was a Puritan preacher in London in the 1640s, and his trade secret runs opposite to every financial instinct we have. The world chases contentment by adding to the pile. Burroughs says the Christian gets there by bringing the desire down to meet what God has actually provided, and where the two lines touch, there contentment is. I also answer the question that matters for a working man: whether you can survive the 1640s prose. (You can. One chapter at a time.)
Canada's Counter-Tariffs Start Today: What Gets More Expensive
Monday's news, minus the panic. Which of the 700 products will actually reach your receipt, and why the shelf price moves by a fraction of the headline rate. There is exactly one purchase where acting sooner genuinely saves money; the piece names it. Spoiler for your grocery run: the block of cheddar in your cart is probably fine.
Worth Your Time
[Article] Renewing Your Mortgage? A Guide for Canadians
MoneySense
Read
The renewal letter your lender mails is an offer, and rarely their best one. This walks the whole timeline: when to start shopping, how a rate hold works, and what switching lenders actually takes. If the 60 percent below includes you, twenty minutes here can be worth thousands.
[Article] A Booby Trap in the Christian Budget
Desiring God
Read
An older piece that pairs with this week's lead. The trap: budgeting so carefully that you end up thinking about money constantly, which is its own way of serving it. Paul's plea was for contentment and simplicity, whatever your spreadsheet says. It stung a little when I read it. I pass it along anyway.
[Report] More Than a Provider: Australian Dads on Identity, Health and Support
Movember
Read
Movember surveyed 1,216 fathers of young kids this spring, and two findings belong side by side. 84 percent said becoming a dad gave their life greater meaning, and three in five were never once asked how they were doing in their child's first year. If a new father is in your circle, ask him. Plainly, and more than once.
The Week in One Number
60%
The share of all outstanding Canadian mortgages renewing in 2025 or 2026, from the Bank of Canada's updated renewal analysis. It is the largest renewal wave the country has seen, and a man coming off a five-year fixed from 2021 is looking at a payment roughly 15 to 20 percent higher than the one he has been carrying. If your renewal date sits inside the next year, calculate the new payment now and live on it for three months first. The gap between the old payment and the new one goes straight into savings, and renewal day arrives already rehearsed.
Run your own renewal: Mortgage Renewal Calculator
Source: Bank of Canada staff analytical note, updated July 2025
Good News About the Good News
In an Australian prison, the weekly chapel service that drew a handful of men three years ago now draws about forty. Prison Fellowship Australia's July report describes recent baptisms behind the wire, three more inmates raising their hands to ask for theirs, and prisoners the chaplains call thirsty for Jesus. Nobody attends a prison chapel to keep up appearances. When a man with nothing left to perform for stands up and asks to be baptized, that is the gospel doing what it has always done. It reaches the men everyone else has written off, and it makes them new.
Source: Prison Fellowship Australia, July 2026
Coming Next Week
The rotating feature returns with A Question I Keep Getting, and there is fresh ink on the site I have not had room to show you yet. Keep next Thursday's issue out of the trash; it will earn its slot.
The Close
The tariffs will fade from the front page by Christmas, and some other number will take their place in your head. Burroughs preached contentment while England tore itself apart in civil war, and he could do it because his treasure sat somewhere the headlines could not reach. Our wealth is in the cross.
Contentment is learned. That means it can be learned by you.
Grace and peace,
Dan
P.S. If a man you know has a mortgage renewal circled on the calendar, forward him this issue. The three months of rehearsal works a lot better with lead time.