Each month I have a High Council speaking assignment in one of the ten wards and branches (congregations) in our Stake (diocese). The topic for the speaking assignment is set by the Stake Presidency. The topic assigned for this month was “provident living”. Several resources were suggested to be used to prepare for the talk, with www.providentliving.org, a website operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the Mormons), as a primary resource. While my talk was directed at a Mormon audience, provident living is certainly a timely and appropriate topic, regardless of one’s faith or religion. So, with that background, here’s what I talked about this afternoon.

Provident living is a very wide-ranging subject. A good definition of provident living will help set the background.

As we strive to care for ourselves and our families, one of our greatest challenges is to find peace in the midst of an uncertain future. We may have the basic necessities of life today, but what about tomorrow? The prophets have urged us to live providently — in other words, to live in a way that will provide the necessities of life not only today, but tomorrow as well.

But living providently … encompasses all areas of life. If we want to face the future with confidence and peace of mind, we must prepare ourselves in six areas:

• literacy and education,
• career development,
• financial and resource management,
• home production and storage,
• physical health,
• social-emotional and spiritual strength.

When we strive to prepare in these areas, we can enjoy peace of mind as we face the uncertainties of the future.

Sister Barbara W. Winder, general president of the Relief Society, says that “provident living includes the prudent, frugal use of one’s resources, making provision for the future as well as providing wisely for current needs.” (The Visiting Teacher: Provident Living: A Way of Life, Ensign, August 1987, p. 35)

We could spend a long time talking about the areas of provident living, but today I wanted to focus more specifically on the areas of financial and resource management.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been in the news fairly often recently. Some articles have talked about the Church’s welfare program, the Bishop’s Storehouses, and Welfare Square in Salt Lake City. Other pieces have dealt with home food storage and what members of the Church are doing to prepare for possible future uncertainties. For instance, an article in the Hampton Roads, Virginia Daily Press on January 3rd, 2009 talked about one young family in law school:

JAMES CITY – Brian Wall, a first-year student at the College of William and Mary Law School, isn’t being pinched as painfully as other Americans by the plummeting economy.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a basic tenet of his faith is economic preparedness. The Mormon church teaches its members to put away food and funds during times of plenty, so they’re in a position to help themselves and others during times of want.

“In the current economic climate, lessons found in the Book of Mormon can be helpful to those outside the church as basic principles of self-sufficiency,” said Wall, a member of the church’s Williamsburg Ward. “When things are good, we save up for when times are bad because that’s inevitably going to happen,” he said last week.

But financial preparedness is one element of a two-pronged preparedness doctrine, according to Heather Oman, a coordinator of emergency preparedness for the church’s Jamestown Ward. Oman specializes in teaching food storage, a principle that runs parallel to financial independence within the church. She starts by helping families amass enough food and supplies to last 72 hours, then helps them work up to storing a year’s worth of food.

But helping others is at the core of the program….

“My little sister was living in Houston during Hurricane Ike,” Wall said. “She and her friends had some food stocked up, and after the storm hit, they were able to share it with neighborhood kids who were basically starving because they didn’t have any food.”

We have been counseled for more than 70 years to become prepared, put our houses in order, and get out of debt. About ten years ago, President Gordon B. Hinckley talked to the men of the church about this specific subject:

I wish to speak to you about temporal matters.

Now, brethren, I want to make it very clear that I am not prophesying, that I am not predicting years of famine in the future. But I am suggesting that the time has come to get our houses in order. So many of our people are living on the very edge of their incomes. In fact, some are living on borrowings…. Everyone knows that every dollar borrowed carries with it the penalty of paying interest. When money cannot be repaid, then bankruptcy follows.

President Hinckley then went on to quote an earlier President of the Church:

President J. Reuben Clark Jr., in the April 1938 general conference, said from this pulpit: “Interest never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation; it never visits nor travels; it takes no pleasure; it is never laid off work nor discharged from employment; it never works on reduced hours; it never has short crops nor droughts; it never pays taxes; it buys no food; it wears no clothes; it is unhoused and without home and so has no repairs, no replacements, no shingling, plumbing, painting, or whitewashing; it has neither wife, children, father, mother, nor kinfolk to watch over and care for; it has no expense of living; it has neither weddings nor births nor deaths; it has no love, no sympathy; it is as hard and soulless as a granite cliff. Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you.” (in Conference Report, Apr., 1938, p. 103.)

He concluded his address as follows:

We are carrying a message of self-reliance throughout the Church. Self-reliance cannot obtain when there is serious debt hanging over a household. One has neither independence nor freedom from bondage when he is obligated to others.

I urge you, brethren, to look to the condition of your finances. I urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt to the extent possible. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from bondage.

This is a part of the temporal gospel in which we believe. May the Lord bless you, my beloved brethren, to set your houses in order. If you have paid your debts, if you have a reserve, even though it be small, then should storms howl about your head, you will have shelter for your wives and children and peace in your hearts. That’s all I have to say about it, but I wish to say it with all the emphasis of which I am capable. (President Gordon B. Hinckley, “To the Boys and to the Men,” Priesthood Session, General Conference, October 1998)

Elder James E. Faust, another General Authority of the Church provided a five-step prescription that would enable us to better control our destinies in an address to the Church in 1986.

First prescription: Practice thrift and frugality. There is a wise old saying: “Eat it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” Thrift is a practice of not wasting anything. Some people are able to get by because of the absence of expense. They have their shoes resoled, they patch, they mend, they sew, and they save money. They avoid installment buying, and make purchases only after saving enough to pay cash, thus avoiding interest charges. Frugality means to practice careful economy. (See Webster’s New World Dictionary, 2d. college edition.)

Second prescription: Seek to be independent. The Lord said that it is important for the Church to “stand independent above all other creatures beneath the celestial world.” (D&C 78:14.) Members of the Church are also counseled to be independent. Independence means many things. It means being free of drugs that addict, habits that bind, and diseases that curse. It also means being free of personal debt and of the interest and carrying charges required by debt the world over.

Third prescription: Be industrious. To be industrious involves energetically managing our circumstances to our advantage. It also means to be enterprising and to take advantage of opportunities. Industry requires resourcefulness. A good idea can be worth years of struggle.
To be industrious involves work. It involves creativity. It also involves rest. It includes both aspects of Sabbath day observance. On the one hand, we are to labor six days. On the other hand, we are to rest one day. This rest will leave us with more energy and resources to make the rest of the week more productive and fruitful.

Fourth prescription: Become self-reliant. I have always admired those who have the ability and skills to make things with their hands. When those skills were passed out in the previous world, I must have been out to lunch. The ability to make repairs around the home, to improvise, to take care of our own machinery, to keep our automobiles running, is not only an economic advantage, but it also provides much emotional resilience.

Fifth prescription: Strive to have a year’s supply of food and clothing. The counsel to have a year’s supply of basic food, clothing, and commodities was given [more than seventy] years ago and has been repeated many times since. Every father and mother are the family’s storekeepers. They should store whatever their own family would like to have in the case of an emergency. (Elder James E. Faust, “The Responsibility for Welfare Rests with Me and My Family,” General Conference, April 1986)

Many have followed this prescription. A few weeks ago I was talking with a good friend who told me the following:

I have a year’s supply of food, clothing, and other necessities and am virtually debt free. Despite several economic downturns and setbacks, I’ve never had to depend on our food storage, probably because I had it. I’ve not had to worry about the next meal and consequently could confidently go about my business.

Preparation drives out fear and replaces it with confidence.

Today’s circumstances are difficult for many people. Some of my very good friends here in Pocatello lost their jobs last week. On Wednesday they had good paying jobs. By Thursday afternoon they were unemployed and are now evaluating what to do with their lives. Some are worriedly scrambling while others who had prepared are able to confidently face the future. The rest of us can take steps now to prepare:

1. Begin now to live on less than you earn. Put some of the excess away for the future and use the rest to pay down current debt starting with the most problematic debt first:
   • Credit Cards, starting with the highest interest cards
   • Student loans
   • Installment loans, such as for automobiles and “toys”
   • Long-term debt such as a mortgage
2. Postpone expenditures until you can pay cash
3. Invest in your future
   • Savings
   • Food and necessities storage
   • Education
   • Skills

For those already on this pathway, you are commended and encouraged to continue as you have started. For the rest, let us begin now to live providently … to live in a way that will provide the necessities of life not only today, but tomorrow as well.