In America, today, April 15, is tax day (although due to a quirk in the federal government calendar, this year the actual day is April 18).  It's the day on which every working American must, unless she applies for an extension, file her income taxes.  It's also the day on which many an accountant can finally take a break, the day on which countless tax attorneys can finally kick back.  Their work is, for a brief season, over.
     Until next year.
     No one enjoys paying taxes.  No one likes giving their money to a government which they believe is not spending it wisely.  Very few of us appreciates that paying taxes is a privilege, a "perk" that attends working for a living. Very few of us would miss filing our income tax returns.
     Sure, all of us know the argument:  taxes fund the governments that in turn, we hope, provide us with order, safety, education, and protection.  But we disagree on how much of our money ought to go to the government to do these things.
     Without stepping into the debate here, I suggest that we can perhaps look at taxes in a larger light.  According to the New Testament (Romans 13) because governments are ordained by God and exist for our good, we pay our taxes.  But this raises other questions.  Does God ordain every government--even clearly evil ones?
     It's a difficult position.  Maybe the point is rather that, this dilemma notwithstanding, we pay taxes because we believe that regardless of how the world looks, God remains in it, working out his purposes for it.  It's a good world with (mostly) good people.  It is a world created by and infused with God.  It's also a world in which, as a result, we are present.
    In the biggest possible picture, everything, though we do not always see or know it, has a point.  Even taxes.