Have you ever noticed that every time you’re in a hurry, there’s some grandma on the road slowing things down?
Have any of you ever had fits of carnality since you became a Christian? As I’ve already told you, I have! I’m not proud of it, but I’ve had my share of fits of carnality. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Have you had one today? Have you ever gotten up, a little tired like I have, and heard your kids screaming and hollering as you’re trying to get to the convention where you’re going to preach? I mean, sometimes it seems as if it’s one thing after another.

This actually happened to me. I was late getting to the airport one time when I had a preaching engagement. I knew I should’ve been praying, but I just didn’t feel like it. I was late, and I told Cathy I wanted to drive.

I wanted to make sure I was going to get to the airport on time. My daughter, who was about six years old at the time, was in the backseat, and my wife was in the front. And I was taking us down the road in a hurry.

Here I was on my way to preach at a spiritual meeting, but I was about ready to encounter a fit of carnality.

Have you ever noticed that every time you’re in a hurry, there’s some grandma on the road slowing things down? Or there’s an old man in front of you who can’t hear anything. You can blow a Mack truck horn right behind him. It may even blow his trunk open, but he’ll just keep looking straight ahead because he can’t hear a thing.

It seems like when you’re in a hurry like that, everybody who’s not in a hurry gets on the road. For example, as we were on our way to the airport, this grandma came flying out in front of us, going about sixty miles an hour. But no sooner did she get in front of us than she slowed down to thirty-five miles an hour!

Have you ever been there? Do you know that old woman? Yeah, sure you do. So I was trying to get around her, but she thought both lanes belonged to her. I went to the left; she went to the left. I went to the right; she went to the right. I started feeling Tabasco sauce coming up my legs. I was praying like this: “God, do something with this woman!”

But I didn’t wait for God to answer that prayer. Instead, I began to talk to that woman. “Woman,” I said, “if you can’t drive the car, park it!” Then I realized she couldn’t hear any of this. She had a bun of hair on the back of her head that was acting as a radio antenna. She was listening to something, but it wasn’t me! She didn’t know about me, because she was tuned out.

This woman was starting to drive me nuts. Every time she looked at something off to the left, her car would drift over to the left with her. The same thing happened when something on the right caught her eye.

I was starting to explode, and Cathy was just looking at me like, I’m not getting involved in this carnality. Of course she didn’t say that. She was just looking at me and thinking it.

“I’m trying to get to a meeting!” I yelled.

If only this woman in front of me would have gone to the right a half-inch more, I could’ve gotten around her. I wanted to put my foot in the carburetor, swerve to the left and roar past. I didn’t care if I hit the grass. I didn’t care if I went into the median. I had to pass that old woman.

So I waited for my chance. I was watching her closely in order to pull out and pass her when, all of a sudden, the muffler fell off her car! That thing just came tumbling down the highway at me, and she didn’t even know it! Her muffler just fell off the car! I saw it coming right for me and tried to swerve, but I didn’t make it. That old muffler came rolling up, and I drove right over it. Immediately, I heard, blublubblublaa.

That lady’s muffler cut my tires! I was trying to go preach a meeting, and an old woman’s muffler fell off the back of her car and cut my tires! Oh, I had a fit. I had a first-class fit of carnality.

I looked at that old woman, and she didn’t even stop. She just kept going! She didn’t even know she was driving a car with no muffler on it. “You old woman!” I yelled. “If I could catch you, I’d-”

“You’d tell her that Jesus loves her, huh, Dad?” I heard my daughter say from the back seat.

Cathy looked at me and raised her eyebrows. She was waiting for what was going to come next. Well, I just looked back at Cathy with a look that said, Go away from me, holy one.

I was left by the side of the road with two flat tires, and meanwhile, that woman was driving off somewhere without a muffler. I don’t doubt that the same woman is driving along somewhere at thirty-five miles right now without that muffler.

Do you know what I did wrong? Let me tell you. At the very first sign of trouble, I should have prayed. I could have said, “Lord, I’m kind of in a hurry. Would You mind moving that little lady over to the side?” I should have let God take care of the problem. It was His meeting I was going to, after all. But at the time, it seemed like it was much easier for me to holler through the glass at that old woman.

The Bible says that to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace (Rom. 8:6). See, I didn’t hold fast to sound words. The whole time that my blood was boiling, deep down I could hear the Holy Ghost saying, Watch it. Watch it, now. You’re going over into the death side.

At any point I could’ve stopped and listened to the Holy Ghost and changed my words. God could have turned the situation around entirely for me. But instead I chose death – and ended up with high blood pressure and two slashed tires!

Every time you get into trouble like that, you can choose a word of life or a word of death. Let me tell you right now, it’s better to choose a word of life! And it won’t get you flat tires either.

Source: Jambalaya for the Soul by Jesse Duplantis
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers