He taught us to trust God
April 15, 2010 (Thursday)
Somewhere, sometime, somehow I heard the phrase, “Behold, the tax man cometh.” Since today is the last day for filing personal income tax forms, I was thinking of beginning this blog with that quotation. But my search for its origin has been unfruitful. Oh, I found the words, quoted no telling how many times by many people, organizations, etc. but nothing appeared that told me where the phrase originated. It seems to have passed into language unannounced but here to stay, available for use by anyone for any reason. If you know where the phrase came from, please tell me.
Anyway, today is the last day to file your 2009 federal tax forms, unless you file for an extension, which is fairly easy to do. I did it once, and there’s nothing to it. You just have to be sure you pay what you owe, because you will have to pay a penalty for underpayment. If you pay too much, you’ll get a refund, and those are nice.
In fact, I got a letter from the IRS one year telling me that I had made a mistake in my arithmetic and had paid too much, and the check for overpayment was in the mail, on its way to me. And it came. Oh, the joy of opening, with fear and trembling, an official looking envelope from the IRS, only to find that it is a promise of money that’s to be mine.
That experience is really like many other experiences of life, in which we get ourselves all worried and fearful over something that has happened or will happen, only to discover when the time comes that there was no need to worry. In fact, Jesus taught us not to worry about anything at all. How do we “not worry?” We learn to trust.
Andrae’ Crouch put our thoughts into words: “Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to trust in Jesus, I’ve learned to trust in God. Through it all, through it all, I’ve learned to depend upon His Word.”