Talk on Provident Living

I might have exaggerated a little, but it was only because I need to be funny.

Because this is my first talk in my new ward, I took the chance to introduce myself. I don't have a "how we met" story. For those of you who know me and feel like I've left things out--I have two responses based on my mood. The first is, "I'm sorry." The second is, "deal." I wouldn't even post this except Alicia specifically made a request and so, here it is.

I love you Sister Bush. :)

Today I am going to talk about Provident Living. First, I should introduce myself. My name is Eve and I am the last person on this earth who should give a talk on provident living.

When I told my mother that I was talking in church on provident living, she laughed. If you knew me better, you would laugh too.

Truly, this talk is the best Mother’s Day gift I could have given my mother, who is the queen of provident living. She is “Super provident living woman!”

She has the slanted shelves in the basement with the food that she canned herself. She has the big garden in the back yard. She keeps a giant bowl in the sink to catch the dishwater and uses that dirty dishwater to water her plants. She runs the literacy center in northern Utah. And in 4 years, my mother and step-father will be completely debt-free.

I am none of these things. I eat out more often than I eat at home. I have massive school debt and credit card debt. I have no money put away for retirement. Luckily I live here in Virginia, so I water my houseplants by sticking them out on the deck. When faced with a choice about spending money, I often feel the need to rebel against the values my mother taught me and buy, buy, buy!

Knowing this, you can imagine the smile that spread across my mother’s face when I told her the bishop had asked me to speak on provident living. This moment is my mother’s dream come true.

On to the talk--
What is Provident Living?

Elder Robert D. Hales describes it in this way:

All of us are responsible to provide for ourselves and our families in both temporal and spiritual ways. To provide providently, we must practice the principles of provident living: joyfully living within our means, being content with what we have, avoiding excessive debt, and diligently saving and preparing for rainy-day emergencies. When we live providently, we can provide for ourselves and our families and also follow the Savior’s example to serve and bless others.

There are 6 different areas of Provident Living. As I share each of the areas—you might perk up at the areas where you’re doing well, and you might sink lower into your seat at the mention of other areas. We have:

Literacy and education
Career development
Financial and resource management
Home production and storage
Physical health
Social-emotional and spiritual strength

In studying out this topic, two main principles stood out to me:
First, we need to know who we are
And second, we need to exercise gratitude for our blessings

The first object to provident living is to understand who we are.

When we know that each of us will be asked to perform certain services, to help those in need, to raise children, to teach and uplift—we will naturally begin to qualify ourselves in order to fulfill our individual missions. A doctor doesn’t decide they want to be a doctor after they accidentally finish medical school—they decide that they are going to become a doctor and take action to become a doctor.


I graduated from BYU with a degree in acting. I considered being a high school drama teacher for about 2 hours. I distinctly remember those two hours being two of the most stressful hours of my life. I graduated from BYU in 2002—just after 9/11. It was difficult for my friends who majored in computer programming to find a job, so you can imagine my difficulty. I actually did get a job, but I felt inspired to turn it down. I spent the rest of the summer waiting for Heavenly Father to provide an amazing job for obediently turning down a perfectly wonderful touring gig. I waited as I worked minimal hours at a call center, and watched my money dwindle away.

At the end of the summer, I packed my bags and moved to Iowa to stay with my dad and step-mom for a month while I tried to figure out the rest of my life. Within 2 weeks, I had a good job working in internet sales. I learned that Heavenly Father is less concerned with our careers and more interested in guiding us through certain life experiences.

While I was in Iowa, my younger brother died. If I had taken the touring job, I would have been in the middle of a show, unable to be with my family. As it was, my dad’s family was together for a family reunion, and I was able to organize a memorial for my dad’s family and then fly to Utah to be with my mom and step-dad, and my other brothers and sisters.

For two years, I did nothing that had anything to do with acting, except for a few variety shows with friends. I felt like my education had been a waste, but Heavenly Father understands that who we are, and how we make our money are not the same thing. I will say that again, who we are and how we make our money is not the same thing. I worked in internet sales, and as a mail processor. But, while working in these jobs, I had the time to serve in the church, and to develop lifelong friendships.

After two years in Iowa, I began to feel the itch that comes when you know that you need to make a change. After much prayer and consideration, I decided to go to grad school in Virginia and get my Master of Fine Arts. This degree would qualify me to teach at a college level. I remembered my initial reaction to teaching high school—and somehow this decision didn’t evoke the same horror. So I moved to Virginia, took out a billion dollars in student loans and I studied Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in Performance. While in grad school, I worked as an actor with the American Shakespeare Center, I taught swimming lessons to little kids, and I worked as a server. I taught workshops and did lectures wherever possible to prepare for post-graduate school employment.

And then school ended, and I had to decide where I should live in order to be able to afford paying off my massive student loans. My hometown of Tremonton, Utah was out of the question. But just for the fun of it, I bought a greyhound bus ticket for $85 leaving for Utah on July 1st.

I was taught to work as hard as you could—and have faith that Heavenly Father will provide the difference. I tried so hard to be in the right place at the right time and to follow the spirit—hoping that by living right I would be guided. That summer I learned how to trust in the Lord. As I stepped into the dark of my new future, small blessings illuminated my way towards a new life that I could never have anticipated.

I spent July 1st watching the clock tick, realizing that I couldn’t get on that bus. A dear friend provided room for my stuff in her garage. I stayed with friends in Baltimore while I sent out hundreds of resumes. I went to the LDS Employment workshop. A stranger on the colonial listserve offered me the chance to stay on her couch in Rockville. This stranger became one of my best friends and we found a nice house in Springfield. I answered an ad on Craigslist for an English teacher. The dean called me in and explained that he was having a difficult time finding an Ethics professor. He said, “I see that you’re an actor who went to BYU. Can I assume you’re religious?” I said yes. He said, “A religious actor. Well, that takes ethics! You’re hired!”

I started with 1 class at night, and during the day I worked as an admin in Bethesda. The next year I took a job as an actor with Maryland Shakespeare Festival, while I continued to teach one and two classes at the university.

It’s been almost two years now. I am currently teaching a full load of classes, and I act or direct at least 2 shows a year.

I couldn’t have planned this. The summer of 2007 was the most frightening summer of my life. But because of that summer, uncertain times don’t feel so uncertain.

As in my case, figuring out where and how you’re supposed to make a living can be difficult. For me, teaching was the natural answer—but if I hadn’t taken the path that I took, I would never have gained the experience necessary to enjoy my life as much as I do right now.

In searching out who we are, the scriptures tell us:

“ The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God,”
and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” Romans 8:16-17.

As we come to know our Heavenly Father and our relationship to Him—we will discover our confidence in our own capacity to help fulfill His mission. We will discover that we have inherited a love for one another, we have inherited agency, and we learn the power of righteous decisions as we read examples set by our righteous ancestors in scriptures and in our family history.

Provident Living and Self-Reliance are natural bi-products to striving to become like our Heavenly Father. It requires faith, hardwork, self-control, gratitude, obedience, and charity.

The opposite of these attributes is fear, laziness, self-indulgence, greed, sin, and selfishness.


Provident Living and self-reliance are unrelated to class or income. A few summers ago, I worked selling debt elimination programs. I discovered that a person making 30,000 a year would have the same proportion of debt as a person making 300,000 a year. No matter how much money you make, if you haven’t learned to live within your means, it will never be enough. You cannot avoid debt by gaining a certain type of employment, or by making a certain amount of money. You must develop the virtues of Provident Living.

2 Peter 1:3-8reads
3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s look closely at these scriptures:
Verse 3: God has given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
So often we imagine that we don’t have enough—but God has blessed us with all that we need.

President James E Faust said:

One of the advantages of having lived a long time is that you can often remember when you had it worse. I am grateful to have lived long enough to have known some of the blessings of adversity. My memory goes back to the Great Depression, when we had certain values burned into our souls. One of these values was gratitude for what we had because we had so little. We had to learn provident living in order to survive. Rather than create in us a spirit of envy or anger for what we did not have, it developed in many a spirit of gratitude for the meager, simple things with which we were blessed, like hot homemade bread and oatmeal cereal and many other things.

At the end of verse 3 and in verse 4 we read that our knowledge of Christ is our source of great and precious promises, and that through our knowledge of Christ, we will escape the lusts of the world.

Then Peter tells us that if we add diligence to our faith—we will not only escape the world, but we will thrive in the world.

Aristotle taught that virtues could be gained through habit—and habits are learned through our diligent actions. If I want to develop the Virtue of Courage—I might make a courageous choice. The first time I choose to do something courageous, it will be difficult, but the more often I choose to do something difficult, the easier it will become---until finally, I will possess the virtue of being a courageous person.

The point is—whether or not we’re born with a natural inclination towards the virtues required for Provident living—we can choose to develop habits that will lead us to those virtues through our daily choices.

In looking at the scriptures in 2 Peter—faith leads to virtue—or rather the talent to perform righteousness-- virtue to knowledge. As we perform virtuously, we will learn more about how to live, how to work,--knowledge leads to temperance or self-control, temperance leads to patience, and patience born from self-control leads us to godliness. As we see one another and the world through God’s eyes—we develop brotherly kindness, and as we exercise that kindness, we are filled with charity.

These are the virtues necessary for Provident Living.

It all starts with Faith in Jesus Christ. As we believe in Christ and his teachings, we will have the capacity to understand the virtues locked within ourselves.

Once again, I will list the qualities of Provident Living set forth in 2 Peter:

Faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly love, and charity.

Elder M. Russell Ballard said:

First, every person must know that he or she is a child of God and is loved by Him. People need to realize that regardless of their circumstances, as desperate as those may be, they are entitled to the Light of Christ in their lives. From Moroni we learn, “The Spirit of Christ is given to every man” (Moroni 7:16). The promise is that every son and daughter of God can find, through the Spirit, answers to the challenges in their lives, including how to become more self-reliant. We must, therefore, ever keep in our minds how precious each child of God is and how important our service is to each one of them.


Our purpose in living providently is not to set ourselves apart in a giant house on the hill—but rather it allows us to be in a position to serve one another.

Do most of understand the mechanics of provident living? Yes. We know that it involves saying no when it would be so nice to say yes! It involves paying our tithes and offerings. It involves patiently working towards a goal, and learning the skills to take care of things yourself.

The joy in preparing this talk for me has been discovering the spiritual reasons behind these choices.

If Heavenly Father wanted to, he would give us all big houses on the hill and a giant wallet filled with lots of money—but through Provident Living—we not only have our temporal needs met, but we can enjoy the traits that come with choosing to live a Provident life.

When we understand that acquiring good habits is a difficult, sometimes painful process—we are more apt to embrace the challenge and push through it. No one runs a marathon because the finish line is so much better than the starting line. We run it because of the strength we gain through overcoming that pain. Some of us have different attributes we need to learn. This week, I am striving to not eat out. It is difficult to go into the kitchen and cook, when it would be so much easier to call for take-out Panang Curry. I love it sooo. But after a while, I imagine that cooking food in the house will become a habit. (I hope by sharing this particular weakness, the rest of you feel better about your own weaknesses. “Well at least I’m not THAT bad.”) And you would be right.

Another difficult habit will be putting some money into savings each month. It will be difficult, but I will do it. And as I do it, it will become a habit, and that habit will eventually become a virtue.


Alma said, “And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.” 30: 5.

As a teacher, I love this scripture. It totally undoes the old saying: “Talk is cheap.” Talk isn’t cheap. Alma promises that our discussions of provident living will lead us to do that which is just. I encourage you to pray to know the specific actions that you can take this week to live a more provident life.

(then I bore my testimony.)

If you made it all the way to the bottom of the talk, thank you for reading!!