KneEmail - a devotional by Mike Benson associated with Forthright Magazine
Words
PICTURE THE MAJOR league baseball pitcher taking his warm-up pitches just before you...
The batter steps up to the plate. The first pitch sails over the catcher's head and slams into the screen. The next one burrows wildly in the dirt and bounces up, almost hitting you in the on-deck circle 20 feet from home plate. Nervous and uncertain, you finally step up to the plate. After three swings at the missile burning across the plate at 90 miles an hour, you're glad to trot back to the safety of the dugout.
Ryne Duren, former pitcher for the New York Yankees, liked to intimidate batters like that. He was known as the patron saint of the "psych out." He knew how to mentally harass opposing batters, "dusting them off" with an assortment of wildly launched pitches that left them terrified.
THOUGHT: Words are sometimes hurled like that in the home. Instead of a baseball, we launch hurtful, intimidating words at each other, inflicting fear, pain and guilt. (Dennis and Barbara Rainey)
KneEmail: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit" (Prov. 18:21).