We did not take part in a “Tea Party” tax protest on Wednesday, though perhaps we should have done so. During the Bakersfield protest, I was one block away at the bank trying to keep the ministry and family afloat.

Tax time hit us very hard this year, both personally and in the ministry, and our survival seems unlikely if you’re looking at the facts on a piece of paper. Some would say we only have ourselves to blame. Perhaps they are right.

Throughout our lives we have intentionally turned away from opportunities to feed at the government trough, both as a family and ministry. We have chosen not to sacrifice our children to the government, and not to sacrifice the ministry to the government. By doing so, we have cost ourselves tens of thousands of dollars.

We have done so because we have believed that our future does not lie in the hands of the government, but in the hands of God. As a corollary, we have also believed that God will motivate those who are truly His to help us financially, both in our family and our ministry, and that they will respond unselfishly. We have never received a salary from LifeSavers Ministries, instead allowing God to motivate people to support our family through personal financial gifts. Though we have never believed that God would motivate our personal supporters to make us rich, we have believed that God would motivate them to give us enough to survive.

For the past several years, our personal support level has been much less than we need to make ends meet. We have survived only through the patience and graciousness of my parents, who have permitted us to subject them to ridiculously long delays without fulfilling our financial obligations to them.

But within the past year, we have lost thousands of dollars in personal support, due to our lack of ability to offer tax-deductible donation receipts to our donors.

Trying to keep up with our taxes this week required some financial gymnastics. And we’re not done yet.

“The power to tax is the power to destroy.” Taxes are threatening to destroy both our family and our ministry right now.

Nevertheless, we didn’t participate in this week’s tax protests. Such protests have always appeared to me to be selfish, with people screaming “get your hands off my wallet!” to the government. I have never thought that the government should not receive some of my money. I am happy to help pay for the roads we drive on and even to help pay the salaries of our legislators.

As a Christian, I try not to think of myself but to think of others. I have been happy to protest for Chinese refugees who were treated brutally in Kern County’s Lerdo jail, and of course to “protest” for the babies who are being violently sacrificed every week in our own community (although classifying our usual activities as a “protest” is not appropriate, because our focus us truly on trying to offer real help to the mothers and their babies).

I have been frustrated — no, beyond frustrated, I have been flabbergasted — by the blank stares I have received from pastors and other Christians when trying to help them see the importance of seeking to save the children of our community (and our own churches) who are dying locally.

So seeing thousands of people on the streets of Bakersfield protesting against taxes doesn’t thrill me. I can’t help but wonder why these people are not willing to take to the streets to save innocent children, who are much more valuable than anything in any of our wallets.

But perhaps my attitude is part of the problem. Our nation’s Founding Fathers understood the importance of enlightened self-interest: providing people with selfish reasons to take a stand which they might not otherwise have been willing to take. Perhaps selfishness is the answer after all.

Perhaps Jesus was wrong. (I am writing this because this is how most of us live. Do we really believe that?)

Perhaps victory will be found only in prostituting our children and our ministry to the government. Time will tell.