Who provides?

If you are the breadwinner in your household, you understand the importance of providing for your family. It costs a lot of money to feed your children, pay a mortgage, keep a car fueled with gas near $4 a gallon, pay insurance and taxes, not to mention paying for luxuries like vacations and internet access.

The government tries to give us some sense for what all this cost. Every other year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture publishes a report called Expenditures on Children by Families. Click here to take a look at the 2007 report. There are a lot of problems with this report, but for the sake of a discussion about the serious costs that go along with raising a family, it is adequate.

I first looked at this report in 2005; it said that a family like mine -- four kids under the age of 14, wife and husband living in the Midwest -- spend $41,830 per year raising our kids. According the the Ag Department, we will spend $1,017,840 raising our four kids from birth to age 18. That doesn't include any expenses for private schooling, nor does it include setting aside money for college.

So, yeah, providing for the family is a big deal. It used to make me really nervous. I used to think that it was all up to me. Sure, I know my wife helps, but I am the main source of income in our household. This self-understanding as provider affected the way I approached my work. It was all about money. I was working because I had to come up with that $41,830 per year to raise the kids. I have to raise more than a million dollars as the kids grow up!

But this kind of thinking was ruining my work experience. I was way too focused on the compensation; I didn't think nearly enough about what I was actually doing. Fortunately, before too much of my career slipped by, I remembered a foundational truth of my faith: God provides. Hmmmmm.

A friend pointed me to Matthew 6:31-33, where it says "Do not worry and say 'What are we to eat?' or 'What are we to drink?' or 'What are we to wear?' ... Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God ... and all these things will be given you besides." There is a similar verse in Luke (12:28-31). It says, "If God so clothes the grass in the field that grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you...? As for you, do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not worry anymore... Your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these other things will be given you besides."

Yes, God provides. While I understood what that meant, it took me quite some time to really grow to the point where I could say I believe it. I mean, it still seemed like providing was up to me. At 6:30 in the morning on a school day when there's no milk in the refrigerator, I'm the one who has to run down to the corner store and get it so my kids have something to put on their cereal. And what does it mean to "seek the kingdom of God," anyway?

Let's work through those questions in the next few posts.

Comments

[Jackie Hilgert]

You raise an interesting dilemma. We can understand that God provides, on an intellectual level, but what about that emotional plane that finds us in a panic when there are bills to pay and not enough money to cover them, or when fridge is emptying fast? How does one "stay the course" and hold fast to the promise that God provides then?

[Tom Bengtson]

That's a great question. So often, the challenge isn't knowing, but believing. Ultimately, we need both faith and reason to understand the world and our relationship with God. I will continue to share my thoughts in the blog, and I hope you find them useful. Thanks.