(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Hi, this is Pastor Roger Jimenez from Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, California. Today I'm making a video to answer the question, how can I provide for my family on a single income? When we talk about this subject, we can talk about a lot of different things. We can talk about how to choose the right type of job. We can talk about how to start a business. We can talk about how to control your spending. We can even talk about how to prepare our sons to provide for a single income family. And I hope to make a video dealing with all of those subjects. But in this video, I want to specifically talk about how to make more money or how to provide for your family on a single income by raising your income. I want to begin by explaining what I call the new Christian single income dilemma. This is something that I've noticed over the last eight years of ministry is that in our world we have been taught, the secular world teaches that it is normal for both husband and wife to go to work. And you know, you put your kids in daycare, you put your kids in public school, you send your kids off somewhere and that frees both husband and wife to be able to go to work. And what often happens is that a young couple that's maybe been married for a couple of years and maybe has one or two children will set themselves up just like the world advises them to do with both husband and wife working. And what I've noticed is that sometimes these husbands and wives will work jobs, which in this video I'm going to call a whatever job. And the whatever job is not a bad job. It's not like you're working at a fast food place or something like that. But it's not a great job. It's not a job that you're going to want to make a career out of. It might just be something that you found that pays well. And when the husband has a whatever job and the wife has a whatever job, you seem to be able to make it just fine. But then you watch a video online. You have somebody knock on your door and they give you the gospel. You get saved and maybe you start coming to church and you start growing in grace and you start growing in the Lord and you start getting connected into a good church and they start teaching you some things. And now all of a sudden wife is staying home with the kids as she should. Now all of a sudden maybe you're homeschooling your children and you've got to buy homeschool curriculum and you've got to buy supplies. And now all of a sudden the man might feel like his whatever job, which worked well when his wife also had a whatever job, now is not meeting their financial needs. And that husband is going to have to do something if he's going to provide for his family on a single income. Because here's what you need to understand. The odds are stacked against you. Our society and culture is set up so that families must live on two incomes. And if you're going to be a family that allows your wife to be, like the Bible says, a keeper at home and allows your wife to raise the children at home and to homeschool them the way the Bible teaches, you're going to have to be purposeful about living in this culture on one income. So like I said in this video, I want to give you some ideas in regards to raising your income so that you can provide for your family. Now one way to do this is by becoming more valuable to your employer. Where I would start, if I were you, is I would look at are there options for me in my current job, in my current place of employment? Are there options and ways that I can make myself more valuable to my employer so that he will maybe give me a promotion or give me raises or allow me to go up the ladder within the career that I currently have? Is there something you can do in your current career, maybe training you can get or certifications that you can get? Is there a skill that you can learn? You should look for ways to make yourself more valuable at the job that you are in right now. Another option, you might say, well, the job that I have, that's not going to happen. I've gone as high as I can and there's nothing else for me to do. Another option for you is to learn a new skill or trade that will allow you to make more money. And I would encourage you to choose a trade where you're working with your hands. The Bible actually says this, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 11 and 12, the Apostle Paul said this, Here the Apostle Paul says that you should work with your own hands so that you would have lack of nothing. And I would encourage any Christian young man, if he's thinking about a new career to go into, that he should consider learning a trade where he works with his hands. I'm talking about being a plumber or a mechanic or an HVAC technician or an electrician or a tile worker working in construction, something like that. And that would allow you to not only make good money in the culture we live in, but it would also give you the type of job that would allow you to prioritize God and the house of God and prioritize your family. If you're going to learn a new trade and start over, then you also have to be willing to start at the bottom as a new guy. And that may also mean that you take a pay cut for a temporary amount of time. And that can be done if you learn to control your spending, to budget, and I hope to make videos explaining and teaching how you can do that in the future. But I would just say this, realize that going into a trade that's going to pay you more than what you make now, although you may take a pay cut initially, eventually in the long run it will work out. So have a long-term focus. Realize that 3 years, 5 years, 10 years are going to go by anyway. And you can sacrifice right now and have a better job or a better career 5 years from now, or you can find yourself in the exact same place 5 years from now. If you don't die, the time's going to go by either way, so you might as well focus on bettering yourself. One last thought I'd like to give you is, it's interesting because in the verses that I read to you, 1 Thessalonians 4 verses 11 and 12, where the Apostle Paul said to work with your own hands, that ye may have lack of nothing. He starts off by saying this, in that ye study to be quiet and to do your own business. And it's interesting that he says that, because if you're going to become more valuable to your current employer by acquiring new skills or getting certifications or just making yourself more valuable to them, or if you're going to go into a new career field by learning a new trade, you're going to have to be willing to learn on your off time. That may mean that you need to read books or watch videos or take a class, but you need to be willing to invest in yourself so that you can make yourself the type of employee that people would be willing to pay more to. I realize that providing for a single income family is difficult in this society, but I want you to know that you can do it. And it may require some work and sacrifice, but if you begin to plan out right now how I can one day make more money so that I can continue to provide for the family that the Lord has blessed me with, I believe that God will help you in that endeavor and that He will join you in those efforts. Now let me also say this, if you're watching this video and you're thinking to yourself, you know what, learning more in my career field isn't going to work, and learning a new skill is not something that I'm able to do or that I want to do, there are some other options for you. And one thing I'd like you to consider is maybe you should start your own business. And I'm going to make another video kind of explaining and encouraging how you can do that. But the point is this, don't make excuses. There's something that you can do and God wants to help you do it. So I hope that all Christians will decide to follow the biblical principles of having their wives stay home to raise their children and that men will learn and take on the challenge of providing for their families on a single income. If you like these videos, we want to encourage you to subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you have an idea of a video that we could make, maybe something going on in current events or a biblical question that we can answer for you, you can leave that in the comments below. And I hope that was helpful. Thanks for watching. You