Tim Wildmon
AFA president
November-December 1993 – Have you ever been through an experience that God used to teach you a spiritual lesson? The Lord Jesus used experiences of day to day living to explain many of the things of God. Today, we call those stories Jesus told parables. Well, I guess you might say a personal parable happened to me recently, and I’d like to share it with you.
Before I came on board here at AFA I worked as a sports reporter at a newspaper in Columbus, Mississippi, about 60 miles southeast of Tupelo. The job didn’t pay much, but I enjoyed my work. I have always enjoyed sports and I have always enjoyed writing, so sports journalism comes naturally to me. Even now, I still moonlight covering sports events when I can.
One recent Saturday night I was leaving the coliseum after a basketball game; a strong wind was blowing and I could hear thunder in the distance. I recalled hearing a couple of other reporters talking about the stormy weather; one even said he would spend the night instead of trying to brave it.
As I reached the highway, I turned across the radio dial, stopping on a station that was giving the latest weather report. The announcer told of a severe storm moving through the area and began to describe how fast it was moving. I realized with little doubt, that somewhere down the road I would intersect with the storm before I made it home.
Well, I got about half way home without much happening. However, I noticed a lot of lightening and nasty skies ahead of me as I drove closer to the storm. Why didn’t I stop at that point? I don’t know, except that the old male ego got in the way and I wanted to get home. By this time it was after midnight.
A few more miles down the road, and it hit: strong winds, loud thunder, near blinding lightening and the hardest rains I can remember driving through. I got a little scared; my heart beat faster as I realized the situation I faced. Folks, the rain was so hard that all I could see was the white line on the side of the highway. That was it. I could not even see if there was a shoulder where I could pull off and wait it out. My eyes were fixed on the white line as I moved very slowly. I may have blinked once in 15 minutes. But I kept moving very cautiously, and finally made it into the city; the rains halted and I drove on home.
Even while pulling into my carport I thought about how important the white line was to my safety, to my very life. I had never really thought about it before. Without it I very well could have driven off the road and into a ditch or into the other lane and been involved in an accident. Translating that into my Christian faith, the white line I depend on is the Holy Bible, the Word of God.
When the storms of life come (even if we find ourselves right in the midst of them) we can bank on the Bible as truth, the way through the storm. We must not blink while trusting it. 
