Julie B. Beck, Relief Society General President, offered this counsel in January 2010, “We become self-reliant through obtaining sufficient knowledge, education, and literacy; by managing money and resources wisely, being spiritually strong, preparing for emergencies and eventualities; and by having physical health and social and emotional well-being.”
Service to others:
By becoming self-reliant, we put ourselves in a much stronger position to serve others. While being able to provide substantial financial support when called upon would be nice, and those who have the financial means to do so certainly should, self-reliance empowers people to give generously of their time. Those whose work requires 80 hours or more per week will certainly struggle to offer the same level of service in the church, in the community and even to their family as someone with only a forty-hour work week.
Putting yourself in a position to serve a mission in retirement is a challenge for many members. It is financially difficult. If your home still has a mortgage as you transition to retirement, even if you and your family members are healthy, serving a mission will be more financially challenging. By liberating yourself from debt completely before retirement, you enable yourself to serve more effectively.
Agency:
As a Latter-day Saint, you understand the plan of salvation offers us all the agency to make decisions for ourselves. Agency is as central to the gospel plan as the atonement, which is only necessary because we have agency. Anything that limits our agency impairs our ability to prepare to return to our heavenly father. We certainly see that concept in the Word of Wisdom, which discourages the use of habit forming substances from fatty foods to tobacco and alcohol.
Debt provides the same kind of limitation on our agency that tobacco does. Once we are in debt, it can take many years to extract ourselves from it. Dutiful payments made each month are often largely absorbed by the incessant encroach of interest, leaving pitiful progress in our effort to free ourselves from debt.
Debt alters our decisions in large and small ways. Once in debt, saving becomes more difficult and additional debt ironically becomes more tempting, ultimately becoming habitual and overwhelming. Almost all of us know a close friend or family member who has been through the cycle of accumulating debt to the point of bankruptcy more than once. The effects on the family are tragic. In the hour of experiencing the consequences of having too much debt, a family’s options are painfully limitedagency is restricted severely by the earlier exercise of agency.
Consider a hypothetical example. Imagine two families, one of which is deeply in debt, though with adequate income to support it and the other with no debt at alleven the mortgage has been repaid. How might their responses to an Apostle differ if called upon to serve as mission presidents? Though they might be equally righteous in every measure, the debt laden family might well have to decline the opportunity to serve while the other would have the flexibility to accept the call.
Keys to self-reliance:
Following Sister Beck’s outline, the following are some keys for becoming self-reliant:
1.Knowledge, education and literacy: Data shows that in the U.S., on average people with college degrees earn almost twice as much as those with only a high school degree (who themselves earn about 1.5 times as much as those who don’t graduate from high school). Work-study programs, scholarships, grants, tax credits and prudent use of student loans can enable virtually anyone with the desire to complete college to do so. Note, too, that the quality of education matters. For-profit colleges at times seem to prey upon working adults who want to get ahead in their careers; a low-cost investment in a community college education may yield higher dividends for many.
2.Managing money and resources: Accumulating the resources for a dream retirement full of international travel and church service may be beyond the reach of many. Thankfully, there are opportunities to serve in every community in the world, including the one where you live. Self-reliance is much more about not having debt than it is about accumulating wealth. In fact, the accumulation of wealth is often at odds with fundamental principles of self-reliance. Many of the paths to wealth are financially and otherwise risky; though a few souls scale the peaks to fame and success, these paths are strewn with debris of those who failed.
3.Spiritual preparation: Becoming spiritually self-reliant is principally about obtaining and maintaining a firm testimony of the restored gospel. A wise youth instructor once coached me to post flags along my future path to mark spiritual hazards, much in the same way that the ski patrol will mark dangers and out of bounds ski hazards with flags that can easily be seen before one skis into danger. Mark your future path with flags to identify hazards that will put your spirituality at risk, such as missing church, skipping your scripture study, viewing inappropriate entertainment, violating the word of wisdom, etc.
4.Emergencies and eventualities: As sure as the sun is shining today, it will eventually rain. Even a relatively small financial cushion can provide dramatic savings. Having $500 to $2000 dollars available at all times to repair the car or replace an appliance or to solve another financial crisis can prevent your family from driving off a financial cliff. A year’s supply of food, a 72-hour kit and good insurance are all part of the preparation for emergencies that will allow you to not only survive them but will enable you to help others at the same time.
5.Physical health, social and emotional well-being: Enthusiastically following the Word of Wisdom, not merely observing the strict taboos required of us, can not only extend our lives but improve the quality of them. By eating less meat and more fruits, vegetables and grains we can maintain a healthy weight. By putting the promise of running and not wearying and walking and not fainting to the test by actually running and/or walking regularly we ensure that we are ready to serve when the Lord needs us. Our social and emotional well-being are supported by living the gospel, attending church and maintaining close associations with our families.
Ultimately, the gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us to “love one another,” to “carry one another’s burdens” and to “lift up the hands that hang down.” By being self-reliant we empower ourselves to better live the gospel by enabling service and freeing our agency.
My book, Building Wealth for Building the Kingdom addresses these and other financial topics; you can connect with me on my blog at <a href="https://buildingwealthforbuildingthekingdom.
<hr class=’system-pagebreak’ />com/”>BuildingWealthForBuildingTheKingdom.com, on Twitter or Facebook. Be sure to share your experiences in the comments below.