God can handle higher local taxes

Ohio’s budget woes and politicians’ proposed solutions are all over the news. Yesterday’s Columbus Dispatch ran two different stories on this topic: one on Senate Bill 5, the controversial legislation limiting collective bargaining, and one on funding cutbacks that central Ohio schools will face in the coming two years.

Many people believe budget cuts at the state level will force municipalities to raise taxes. As I was considering this a couple of days ago, it occurred to me that higher local taxes might sting our family quite a bit. I started to worry a little, but then I stumbled upon a comforting thought: God has shown our family that He can provide for us adequately, even unexpectedly.

When we can’t see solutions to our problems, God can. His perspective is immeasurably broader than ours, and His power is unparalleled (Romans 11:33–36). I now see that many times in my life God has provided for me in unexpected ways. Perhaps you’ve also seen God’s unexpected provision. When Jesus tells us not to worry (see Matthew 6:25–34), He’s not just being rosy. He handles the situations we fear, even if we don’t see a way out. He even handles the situations we would fear if we were cognizant of them.

I don’t know how all of the state budget wrangling will affect my tax bills, but when I find out, God will still be reigning, and He will still provide for me and my family, even if I don’t know how He will do it. That’s good news. Come to think of it, that’s really good news.

— Beau Stanley

What We Can Learn from a Stick in the Road

This week could have started off pretty badly for me.

It had been a rough weekend, but I was ready to begin the new week. Early on Monday morning, however, on my way to the gym, I heard this strange sound coming from the right side of my car. It wasn’t just the sound of my tires hydroplaning in the slightly flooded streets (remember that storm?). Something didn’t sound right, and it didn’t get better as I neared my destination.

I had an important decision to make: will I scrap my plans so that I can sit here and worry? Have you ever run into that decision?

Thankfully I went ahead and worked out. By the end of the workout I felt much better and was in the correct state of mind to deal with car issues. Imagine my surprise—and joy—when I walked back to my car and saw in the daylight something that looked like a large stick lodged under the car. I leaned down, yanked out the stick, and the problem was solved.

Stories don’t always have a happy ending like this. Sometimes we worry about scenarios that end up coming true. But it is pretty amazing how often they don’t end up coming true. Some have suggested that a huge proportion of the things we worry about never take place. My own life experience seems to back this up.

In some sense we live very complicated lives, but in another sense, our lives are amazingly simple. Most of the time, we know what God would want us to do with a block of time, more or less. The challenge is less about figuring out what to do and more about refusing to allow worry and other distractions to stop us from doing what we already know we should do.

Usually our worries don’t come true. But even if they do, if we take care of what God is asking us to do now, God has a way of working out the “then.”

— Beau Stanley