Thursday, I was having lunch with IMB Missionary Tom Hearon at “New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood” in Metairie when we noticed my friend Larry just inside the front door, waiting in a crowded line to give his lunch order. Larry is a great guy and I wanted Tom to know him, so I called to him. He’s a CPA, our church treasurer, has helped our association with financial matters, and does my personal taxes. He pulled a chair up to our table and told Tom of my leading him to the Lord, baptizing him, and performing his wedding to Peggy. Giving me credit for what the Lord did and what I got in on only at the last. After a bit, our talk turned to taxes.

I said, “Larry, I noticed the government is allowing us in this part of the world to have until August to file our taxes.” “Yes,” he said, “One of the few blessings to come out of Katrina. But I’m telling my clients to act as if April 15 is still the deadline and get their stuff in.” “I’m working on it,” I assured him. Which was the truth.

Working on it. But not enjoying it. Filling out tax forms, even the kind I complete only to hand to Larry who does the real work, even that kind is one of my least favorite activities.

For years I thought about admitting to being a procrastinator about taxes, but kept putting it off.

Now, I’m not that way about everything. Ask me to speak at your meeting and I’ll show up prepared. Call me about writing an article for your magazine or drawing a cartoon for your book and I’ll beat your deadline. Last Spring, I wrote five devotionals for our state mission offering scheduled for September. My deadline was April 1 and I e-mailed the articles on March 23. I don’t procrastinate on everything. Just one thing. One big thing. Income taxes.

I don’t just dread income tax time. I hate it. Despise, abhor, detest. Loathe, dislike, execrate, scorn. Shrink from, have an aversion to, abominate. (Thanks for the help, Mr. Roget.)

Now, to be honest, it’s not all that hard to do my taxes any more. I keep good records and have everything handy. I pay enough throughout the year that I actually get refunds. This was a long time coming, though.

For years, I had to schedule a good revival meeting in the springtime and hope for a generous love offering to get me through the income tax season. I recall with pain how one spring over 20 years ago, I preached a revival at the First Baptist Church of Denton, Texas, and followed immediately with one at Calvary Baptist Church in Tupelo, Mississippi. They gave me generous offerings. I came home, deposited the checks, and opened the tax forms from my CPA only to discover it would take every dime I had just put in the bank to put me in the clear with Uncle Sam.

But that doesn’t happen any more. I’m actually planning better than I used to.

For the first 15 years of my adult life, I did my own taxes. That’s probably where all the old fears and dreads and pain come from. As a young pastor, I felt deeply that integrity was the bottom-line essential quality in any Christian and particularly in every preacher, and knew I should set an example for others. But alas, how to get through those tax forms without going further and further into debt, shelling out money I did not have, but without cutting corners and violating my own conscience–that was the problem. I dreaded it.

I reluctantly confess at this distance that much of what I wrote in those blanks was sheer guesswork. Also known as estimates, hunches, and exaggerations. And then one day I was notified by the IRS that I was to be audited.

Not all IRS agents are cruel and heartless. The one assigned to my case seemed to appreciate that young, green ministers live on the edge of poverty and are still learning how to keep records of this kind. He was kind-hearted and understanding. I had to come up with a couple of hundred dollars, as I recall, but he could have hurt me far worse.

Ten years later, I was audited again. This time I was ready.

By then, I had my own accountant. W. C. Thomas was a deacon in our church, also our treasurer, and one of the most likeable men I’ve ever known. Since he handled my predecessor’s taxes, he volunteered to do mine.

The agent who audited me that year was a lovely lady who belonged to a sister Baptist church across town. Years later, her son joined my church staff as an associate minister, and I found her to be exactly as I had thought when she audited me–a genuinely gracious person.

The agent disallowed one deduction in particular we had been claiming. W. C. had told me, “You require a nice dark suit for the pulpit. It makes sense to claim that as a business expense. Besides, I did this for your predecessor’s taxes.” So, we took it. “Wrong,” said the agent. “If you can wear it only in the pulpit, like a robe, okay. Otherwise, it’s not deductible.” Disallowed.

The audit that year cost me $600. Fair enough, I figured. Anything short of going to jail I counted as a victory.

Interestingly, the next year when W.C. did my taxes, he again deducted for a dark blue pulpit suit. I said, “Hey, she said we can’t count that.” He smiled, “If they audit us again, we’ll take it off.” You can see why I liked this man. I said,”No, let’s not do that. We already know it’s not allowed.” (These are far different days regarding pulpit attire. I wonder if pastors like Rick Warren deduct a certain amount from their taxes for blue jeans, sneakers, and Hawaiian shirts. Probably not.)

(A funny aside about W.C. Thomas. In 1982, he and Freda went with a group of us to England, where we were the guests of a wonderful church family for two weeks in Tonbridge, Kent. One Sunday morning in a Sunday School class, we had just introduced ourselves, when a British gent leaned over and asked me, “Why in the world would his parents name him W.C.?” I said, “They named him William Cledith, but we just call him W.C. Remember that only in England does that stand for ‘water closet.’ In America, it’s just two letters of the alphabet.” We laughed about that later, and W.C. said, “That man thought my name was ‘Toilet Thomas.'” He’s been in Heaven many years now and I still miss him.)

At its most basic, this thing I feel about the annual tax business is just plain unadulterated fear. Now, we Christians know a lot about fears. We know there are good ones–the kind that keep us from driving too close to the edge of the road and purchase flood insurance on our house–and the bad ones, those that strike some people with terror at the thought of speaking in front of an audience or going somewhere in an airplane or publicly confessing Christ as Savior.

In “Moby Dick,” Melville has the first mate, Starbuck, saying, “I will have no man in my boat who is not afraid of a whale.” Some things we do well to fear.

But we know the bad fears have to be confronted and dealt with, otherwise they grow and multiply and tyrannize our lives. In “Good Grief,” Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s biography of Charles Schulz, we learn of the cartoonist’s fear of flying. Yet, once a year, Schulz would take a plane somewhere. He knew that if he gave in to the fear of flying, eventually it would grow more aggressive until in time he would be unable to leave the house.

A quarter of a century ago, Pastor James W. Angell wrote a book I have marked up and refer to again and again. “Learning to Manage Our Fears” is an affirmation of the boldness with which God intends us to live. Angell quotes poet Robert Hale:

“Fear creeps in like a poisonous fog,

making us pull down the shades

and double-lock the doors.

“Fear erects barriers of the mind

more real than barbed wire

or the Berlin Wall.

“Trembling disciples behind our barricades of fear,

we have forgotten the Master

who walked through all barriers.”

I love to refer timid believers to II Timothy 1:7, Paul’s reminder to a shy young pastor (Timidthy?) to live boldly. At the same time the old apostle was facing a fearsome court date before Caesar himself–the ancient equivalence of tax time, multiplied by a thousand–he said,

“God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.”

As with many of the matters we wrestle with in life, I know these things in my head, but struggle with translating them into life.

But I know one more thing, something that makes me get into the kitchen and attack those papers and tax records. After I drop the completed tax forms into the mail, I will feel terrific. It’s a great high. I’m so giddy with relief and joy that I practically walk up to complete strangers on the street or in elevators and say, “Gimme five. I just did my taxes.” But they wouldn’t understand.

I’m sure I’m the only person who dreads this taxing time of the year.