"Latter-day Saints believe in being prepared and self-reliant. We believe in preparing educationally for employment, in preparing financially for a rainy day, and in preparing temporally for natural disasters or other challenges. Most important, we believe in preparing spiritually for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and for living with our Father in Heaven again. This approach to preparedness is called provident living. Living providently reflects our true eternal nature: we are “to act for [ourselves] and not to be acted upon” (2 Nephi 2:26). The Lord wants us to be responsible and independent (see D&C 78:14). He wants us to live providently because of who we become in the process: responsible, generous, mature, kind. For the more self-reliant we are, the better we can help our families and others. How can we feed the hungry if we ourselves are hungry? How can we impart knowledge if we ourselves lack knowledge? How can we build others’ faith if we ourselves lack faith?" (Oct 2012 Ensign, "Provident Living Prepares Us For The Future")
The Church has an abundance of resources to help us in our efforts to live providently. They cover topics such as Education, Finances, Food Storage, Physical and Mental Health and more. We can each improve in some area and these resources can aid our efforts. Spending a bit of time exploring their site Provident Living on lds.org would be a good thing to do.
As disciples of Christ, we covenanted at baptism "to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light...to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in". (Mosiah 18:8-9) Provident Living is a way of life that helps us to strengthen ourselves and prepares us to strengthen others. As the old adage says: You can't draw from a dry well. It is the same with our lives and our ability to share physically, emotionally, and spiritually with others in need. But before we become overwhelmed with one more thing to do, we need to remember that the Lord expects us to do all things "in wisdom and order" (Mosiah 4:27). We simply need to start somewhere and move forward. As long as we are trying, the Lord will bless our willing hearts and efforts. We will see the blessings in our own lives, in our families and in our ability to bless other's lives.
-Lorie Pierce
