KneEmail - a devotional by Mike Benson associated with Forthright Magazine
Kneemail - Christian Living
THERE ARE TWO distinct ways of seeing a person's faults: conviction and condemnation... God convicts of sin, whereas Satan condemns. The divine purpose in addressing sin is to call us to repent so that we will become the people...
ONE DAY, MY husband and I took up racquetball... Knowing I needed the exercise, I also ventured into the little box that was the court. It seemed a trifle small for the two of us, but it was fun....
WATCH THE POWER of one... One good Samaritan rescued a wounded man on the Jericho Road. cf., Luke 10 One aged man (Noah) was instrumental in saving mankind from extinction. cf., Genesis 6; Hebrews 11:7 One man (Moses) who...
IN A SERIES of very difficult technical reviews conducted in a foreign country, the company representatives with whom I was meeting became extremely upset about the products from my company... I had a translator for the meeting, hired from...
WHAT IF SOMEONE knocked on your door today and asked, "Could I sell you some misery today...? What have all kinds for sale." Would you buy it? Of course not, but many of us, including me, have "bought" it...
THERE IS A certain convict that I have been corresponding with for several years down in Texas that recently got a "new" typewriter... He had completely worn out the old one. It was not very easy to correct his...
SOME HANDS ARE used to play piano, some to mold clay, others to sign for those who cannot hear... Some hands are used to cook for others. Look at your hands. What do you see? I see veins popping...
IT WAS JANUARY 13 and Frank and Cindy had gone outside to look around after the ice storm was over... The night was clear and very cold. Returning to the cozy confines of their den and sipping on hot...
THE BIBLE ACKNOWLEDGES the problem of anxiety... An awful lot of people's answer to anxiety is medication. I certainly don't want to make light of the very serious issues of anxiety with which many people must cope in their...
SOME TIME BACK I read a statement which really got my attention... The statement declared that a little, tiny gnat can wreck an automobile. Of course, I wondered, "How?" And the article then explained that a tiny gnat had wrecked...
CHURCH MEMBERS NEED to be close to church members... Anytime a Christian creates distance between himself and the church, he is under a great threat of falling away from the faith. Some folks prefer to not be too involved with...
THE WORST DEFEAT in a college football game came on October 7, 1916, when Georgia Tech played Cumberland College of Tennessee... The final score was 222 to 0. The much smaller Cumberland players were mauled. Cumberland had discontinued its football...
MY DEAR FRIENDS..., You know around here we are experiencing hardships, but we thank the Lord He is comforting us and caring for us in every way. When we experience misfortune, adversity, distress and hardship, only then do we see...
A GOOD FRIEND of mine's personal statement on Facebook says, "Don't let your eyes adjust to the dark..." He gives no explanation or elaboration, and for his friends who are unfamiliar with the Bible, the message probably makes no...
THE STORY IS told of a father who took his two boys one afternoon to play miniature golf... The father walked up to the man at the ticket counter and said, "How much is it to get in?" The young...
AS A MAN Thinketh by James Allen is arguably the best non-inspired book ever written on the power of thought... Allen compared the mind to a garden and its owner to a master gardener. A good character is not the...
YEARS AGO AN experiment was conducted to measure people's capacity to endure pain... How long could a bare-footed person stand in a bucket of ice water? It was discovered that when there was someone else present offering encouragment and support,...
EVER PLANT A garden...? Or maybe just a few flowers in a bed or a plant in a pot? Something makes it possible for the gardener to function, or a farmer to produce a crop is a "law" of nature....
WHERE DID WE come from...? Who are we? Why are we here? How should we live? Where are we going? The answers to each of these questions depend on the existence of God. If God exists, then there's ultimate meaning...
IT LOOKED AS if the rain would never stop... The clouds were laden and heavy. The thunder rumbled across the sky, and there was even an occasional flash of lightning. The day was gloomy enough, but the funeral that I...
I CARRY SOME coffee stir sticks around in my backpack because I want to remember that I need to be a stir stick... I want to get into the lives of people and stir them up and help them reach...
FOR THE FIRST time in her life, Western Oregon University's Sara Tucholsky not only hit a home run in a game against Central Washington University, but she hit it over the fence... She had passed first base and was on...
THERE ARE AT least three levels of listening: 1. No listening or nonlistening: This person has no awareness of the need to listen or to use a set of skills related to listening. He is not hearing impaired, so he...
THE BLOG TITLE read, "Moron turns in $140,000.00..." The title refers tot he news story that broke last month. Eli Estrada, a 40-year-old Palm Beach resident found a bag containing $140,000 in unmarked $20 bills. Mr. Estrada certainly could have...
ARISTOTLE SAID, "WE are what we repeatedly do... Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." We are creatures of habit. Habits--overeating, thumb-sucking, breath-holding, nail-biting, smoking, and the like--run the gambit from unpleasant to unhealthy. Other habits, like reading,...
IN 490 BC, THE Persians landed at a place called Marathon with the hope of capturing Athens... Greatly outnumbered, the Athenians dispatched Pheidippides to Sparta for help. Pheidippides is reported to have run one hundred and fifty miles in two...
REMEMBER "LONESOME DOVE," television's blockbuster mini-series...? It was the saga of two men, Woodrow Call and Gus McCray. Both strong. Stronger together. Men with rock solid commitments to each other. To be sure, both were stubborn eccentrics. They called each...
LAST YEAR WHILE hiking in the mountains of North Georgia, I came across a very large unusually shaped brick... The brick was almost completely covered in green, fur-like vegetation. After I scraped the green goop away, I carefully inspected the...
IN 1995, OUTSIDE THE Bulgarian Embassy in Washington, D.C., the son of a former embassy employee lost his life... Walking with his friends, he was confronted by muggers. Apparently, however, his murder could have been avoided. The thieves only wanted...
PEOPLE USED TO travel between the UP (Upper Peninsula) and LP (Lower Peninsula) of Michigan by ferry until they built a bridge along the Straits of Mackinac... In 1934, the Michigan Legislature created the Mackinac Straits Bridge Authority to study...
IT WAS A fog-shrouded morning, July 4, 1952, when a young woman named Florence Chadwick waded into the water off Catalina Island... She intended to swim the channel from the island to the California coast. Long-distance swimming was not new...
ONE AUTHOR TELLS the story of the world's most unwanted ship, the Pelicano... No country in the world wanted her. No country allowed her to land. She was a seaworthy ship and had reputable owners. The problem was that she...
WHY DOES A person enter military service...? Some want to travel and see the world. Others are thrill seekers who find the adventure (and danger) exhilarating. Quite a few choose a career in the service for financial rewards (college tuition,...
A MAN WAS discussing how empty his life was, and he knew that something had to be changed... This might appear strange, because he had all of the outward signs of success -- at least those the world prized highly....
NOAH CONSTRUCTED THE ark by faith (Hebrews 11:7)... Did Noah spend a hundred years building the ark with an uncertifiable faith? Did Noah's faith declare, "I believe that God is, that He has instructed me to build an ark, but...
TWO MONKS WERE walking together through the country-side... Both had taken the vow of silence and the vow of cleanliness, which meant they were not to speak to or touch anyone. Their journey brought them to a shallow stream, but...
WHENEVER YOU FIND yourself going through times of testing, there is always a reason...a very good reason... In fact, there are several reasons. Testing times are to: UNCOVER something: When God allows pressures and trials, it is so that you...
DAVID, THE SHEPHERD who was anointed king but hired as a servant, was playing his harp in King Saul's presence, trying to soothe the mad king... In a fit of irrational rage, Saul picked up a spear and hurled it...
"...THE BEST WAY to manage conflict is to treat it as something normal and bring it out into the open where it can be handled fairly and constructively... Fighting openly keeps conflict from festering in insidious ways and gives those...
BARNA RESEARCH GROUP found that: . Eighty-two percent of regular Bible readers described themselves as "at peace" compared to 58 percent of those who said they never read the Bible. . Seventy-eight percent of regular Bible readers said they felt...
HER DISGUISES DIDN'T work... The Queen of France was young, energetic, and immature, and she longed to be with people her own age. Resenting the limitations of royal life, she attended dances, balls, and parties in disguise. But biographer Carolly...
FORMER POLICE officer tells of the tactics of roving bands of thieves: They enter the store as a group. One or two separate themselves from the group, and the other start a loud commotion in another section of the store....
JOHN MACVANE WAS a reporter for the National Broadcasting Company during World War II, and his broadcasts from the battlefront kept Americans riveted to their radios... One day in November 1942, while he was in North Africa, he was told...
IN ANGOLA, WOMEN had an opportunity to enter a very different kind of beauty pageant... Contestants had to have been injured by land mines. In that African country, 80,000 people are amputees because of land mines, so it wasn't a...
WHEN THE RINGLING Brothers Circus went to New York City in April 2004, thousands of people jammed Madison Square Garden to see the greatest show on earth... What they saw instead was a terrifying accident. A performer named Ernado Rangel...
GEORGE O. WOOD writes that on October 31, 1983, Korean Airlines flight 007 departed from Anchhorage, Alaska for a direct flight to Seoul, Korea... Unknown to the crew, however, the computer engaging the flight navigation system contained a one-and-a-half-degree routing...
I HEARD THE screams long before I could see him, but as I wheeled my grocery cart around to the next aisle of the store, there he was... With angry tears streaming out of squinty eyes, the little boy was...
TIS THE SEASON to receive catalogs in the mail.... Every trip to the mailbox ends with an armload of slick holiday catalogs. Each one claims to offer me something I need--immediately. "Don't wait!" "Limited offer!" "Order now!" The lure works....
SOME OF US who don't like confrontation at all have a tendency to try to smooth conflict over before we've gotten to the root of it... Affirmation doesn't mean starting off with a list of compliments. Maybe you've had a...
CHILDREN DO NOT always learn in the schoolroom how to treat one another with dignity and affection... You can't diagram respect, forgiveness, or servanthood. It isn't found in any encyclopedia that I know of. It is observed and then put...
PETER CARTWRIGHT, A nineteenth-century, circuit-riding preacher, was an uncompromising man... One Sunday morning when he was to preach, we was told that President Andrew Jackson was in the congregation. Cartwright was warned not to say anything out of line. When...
IT WAS A 99 degree September day in San Antonio, when a 10-month-old baby girl was accidently locked inside a parked car by her aunt... Frantically the mother and aunt ran around the auto in near hysteria, while a neighbor...
IN THE NEW York Times Magazine, Nancy V. Raine told a story she heard twenty-five years earlier from a friend named George... In those days, work crews marked construction sites by putting out smudge pots with open flames. George's four-year-old...
TODAY WE MOURN the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red...
WHO HASN'T DREAMED of hitting the jackpot and buying a new car and taking the vacation of a lifetime...? Not all that long ago, Nevada was the only place you could legally play the slots or poker, and New Hampshire...
HAVE YOU EVER tried to figure out the remote control for your television set...? I find myself calling our cable company at least once or twice a year to say, "Hey, how do I make this thing work?" Inevitably, some...
ANCIENT WRESTLING MATCHES weren't for the squeamish or timid... Hoping to see some clean takedowns, reversals, and figure-four leg locks? Better look elsewhere. During the time of the Roman Empire, little things like kicking, biting, and scratching were perfectly acceptable...
NATIONWIDE, ALMOST FIVE million acres have been torched by wildfires this year... In Montana alone, 2,000 fires have raged over 457,000 acres. The Washington Post called it "a 100 year catastrophe" for the state (Susan Gallagher, "Western Wildfires Show No...
ONE OF THE childhood memories I have of my grandma and granddad's house in Reader, West Virginia was the "slop bucket" they kept by the kitchen sink... Now, for those of you who don't know what a slop bucket is,...
WESLEY BRITT WAS a 6-foot-8-inch, 312-pound lineman for the Crimson Tide (University of Alabama)... He was one of 22 football players nationwide chosen to the Playboy All-American team. With the honor came a free week at the mansion, the opportunity...
IT IS A certain and obvious truth that we reap as we sow... The notion, however, that somehow the consequences can be avoided accompanies every temptation. Satan would have us believe that we need never regret our transgressions. But there...
MICHAEL HODGEN TELLS a rather humorous story about a man dressed in a devil outfit who was on his way to a costume party when suddenly he got caught in a rain storm. Searching for cover from the downpour, the...
GOD INSTRUCTED MOSES to return to Egypt and lead the Israelites out of bondage (Exo. 3)... The reason given by God for Moses' return to Egypt at this time was that God had "surely seen the oppression of My people...
JESUS TOLD THE twelve to get into a boat on the Sea of Galilee... As they started across the sea, everything was smooth and calm, and Jesus went to sleep. Suddenly a huge wind blasted on the sea and the...
IN ANCIENT TIMES...the finest pottery was thin... It had a clear color, and it brought a high price. Fine pottery was very fragile both before and after firing. And...this pottery would [often] crack in the oven. Cracked pottery should have...
THE STORY IS told of a Bible class teacher who was telling her Bible class the parable of the good Samaritan... She described in great detail how this man was brutally beaten, robbed, and left for dead on the side...
MY NEIGHBOR SEEMED upset with me... Apparently I had done something that bothered her. When I asked if I had offended her, she responded with a curt "No!" I told her, "I don't want any bad feelings between us." Since...
WHEN I WAS a boy, I had a bike that I had grown tired of... There wasn't anything wrong with it, I just wanted something better...a 10-speed. So I took my fire-engine red, Huffy bicycle, with a white banana seat,...
I WATCHED SNIPPETS of the World Cup this year for the first time... I got to see the last several minutes of the second overtime and the penalty kicks. However, the big story was not the "action" on the field,...
TELL ME HOW to show love without spending time, energy or money and I will gladly sign up... Tell me that love means sacrifice, however, and I become reluctant to commit myself. Maybe that is why some Christians emphasize the...
"NO ONE CAN serve two masters," declared Jesus to his disciples (Matt. 6:24)... However, Christians have spent the greater portion of the past two millenniums apparently trying to prove Jesus wrong. We have told ourselves that we can indeed have...
WORRY IS WIDESPREAD and is a universal problem... It is not limited to any one class. The poor and rich, the cultured and the unlearned and both the young and old worry. We worry about how to get money, and,...
A REAL CHRISTIAN is an odd number anyway... He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, empties himself...
HAVING A BAD day...? This morning you woke up tired and grumpy, and things haven't gone right from that moment. You took the dog out and he wouldn't come back in, so you spent a lot of time coaxing him...
IT IS NOT enough to be willing to listen... Jesus told His disciples to let His words sink down into their ears, i.e., lodge within their minds and take up permanent residence. In John 5, Jesus confronted the Jews who...
SOLOMON IS A disturbing biblical character... He begins his reign wisely, blessed by God with an incredible wisdom. God allows him to build a glorious temple. Wealth and wisdom are his; what more could a man want? But instead of...
THE RUNNERS IN an NCAA cross-country track championship held in Riverside, California, came to a turn that was not well-marked... Mike Delcavo knew the way and waved frantically for the other runners to follow him. Only four did. One hundred...
EVERY 27 MINUTES someone in this country is killed by alcohol... Thirty million families suffer because a father, or a mother, or both are alcoholics. Beverage alcohol kills more than 200,000 Americans each year. 80,000 died at Hiroshima, 35,000 died...
SHORTLY BEFORE HIS death, the Duke of Burgundy was presiding over the Cabinet Council of France... A proposal was made by the ministers that would violate a treaty but would secure important advantages for the country. Many reasons were offered...
GREAT SUCCESS DOES not always come from a single effort... Worthwhile things are always worth trying and striving for, even if we must try again and again. In the year 1917, a tornado destroyed our home, blew it away...
YEARS AGO, A radio station received a letter from a shepherd who lived on an isolated ranch in the western part of the United States... Never before had the station received such an unusual request. It read, "Will you please...
WALKING PAST MY barn one day, I heard a frantic chirping inside, and upon investigation I found a bluejay beating its wings against the glass pane of the window... Had it not cried and squawked, I would not have heard...
ON MARCH 20, 1980, MOUNT St. Helens in Washington, a supposedly dormant volcano, began to quake and rumble... The local population was evacuated to a "safe" distance 8 miles away. Later, the side of the mountain began to bulge. Scientists...
THERE WAS A time when I thought I had to have warm, glowing, intimate feelings toward those who had hurt me in the past and continued to wound me severely... I was frustrated on how to force those feelings. Upon...
THE WARDEN ASKED the man on death row what he would like to eat for his last meal... The inmate said, "I would like a huge piece of watermelon." The warden replied, "You must be kidding! This is December. Watermelons...
SOMETIMES GOD ALLOWS trouble to continue in order to teach us to be patient... Moses seemed to think that the exodus would commence the moment he started obeying God. But godliness does not guarantee immediate results, and God's plans often...
INCREDIBLE AS IT sounds, Alexander Whortley lived in a mini-trailer 3 feet wide, 4 feet long, and 5 feet high until he died at the age of 80... It was made of wood, had a metal roof, and it housed...
A NEWSPAPER OBITUARY caught my eye with this statement: "Services today for affable fix-it man are today..." Instead of focusing on one of the movers and shakers of society, the article told the story of a 79-year-old appliance repairman who...
A PERIODICAL CALLED The War Cry carried a story about a tenant farmer who had worked hard for many years to improve the production of the land he leased... Then something happened that caused him to become very bitter. When...
KIM PEEK WAS running the 50-yard dash in the Olympics - specifically, the 1968 Special Olympics... You see, Kim was severely handicapped and brain-damaged. Kim was racing against two other handicapped athletes; both of them suffered with cerebral palsy and...
THERE'S A WONDERFUL moment in an otherwise mediocre movie that has always stayed with me... It sums up the attitude I think we should all adopt. The film is called The Gumball Rally, and it's about an illegal cross-country road...
EVERY YEAR, ABOUT 1500 "thru-hikers" set out to walk the entire Appalachian Trail in a single season... Only 10 percent complete the 2,160 miles of challenging terrain stretching from Georgia to Maine. One reason some people drop out early is...
OUR SOCIETY IS addicted to "reality..." I guess it started a good while back with crime shows like Cops and Real TV. Then, we made the switch to relationship shows like The Bachelor(ette). It seems that nothing is too sacred...
IN 1845, THE ill-fated Franklin Expedition sailed from England to find a passage across the Arctic Ocean... The crew loaded their two sailing ships with a lot of things they didn't need: a 1,200-volume library, fine china, crystal goblets, and...
BACK IN 1911, a stuntman named Bobby Leach went over Niagara Falls in a specially designed steel drum -- and lived to tell about it... Although he suffered minor injuries, he survived because he recognized the tremendous dangers involved in...
THE LOUVRE IN Paris is perhaps the most famous art museum in the world... It displays originals by such masters as Delacroix, Michelangelo, Rubens, da Vinci, Ingres, Vermeer, and many others. Since 1793, the Louvre has encouraged aspiring artists to...
FLICK "THAT'S TONIGHT at 8 on ABC..." Flick. "A high pressure system is moving in." Flick. "He kicked the ball wide of the goal!" Flick. "I'll take 'World History' for $600, Alex." Flick. "In the news today..." Flick. What's happening?...
CONTRITE IS ONE word that is used in the Old Testament to speak of brokenness... The word suggests something that is crushed into small particles or ground into powder, as a rock is pulverized. What is it that God wants...
A YOUNG NURSE was assisting a surgeon for the first time... As he was completing the operation, she told him he had used 12 sponges, but she could account for only 11. The doctor curtly replied that he had removed...
JAMES DEITZ HAS produced paintings of airplanes and their crews that are so realistic they look like photographs... His works hang in many aviation galleries in the United States, including the Smithsonian Institution. One of the paintings by Deitz, titled...
EVERYONE HAS A point somewhere in the geography of their souls marking the limits of their faith... It is the point at which faith begins to unravel. For younger Christians, that point may be just around the corner; seasoned believers...
I REMEMBER ESPECIALLY one year when, at the invitation of a neighbor, I joined a therapy group at a nearby hospital... This group, called Make Today Count, consisted of people who were dying, and I accompanied my neighbor to their...
BRIG. GEN. NORMAN "Dutch" Cota, assistant division commander of the 29th, came on a group of infantry pinned down by some Germans in a farmhouse... He asked the captain in command why his men were making no effort to take...
ONE OF MY favorite cartoon characters is the Roadrunner... Don't laugh. You can learn a lot about life from the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. For example, when the coyote tries to trap his nemesis, he often piles bird seed...
ONE MORNING WHILE Alfred Nobel was reading the paper, he was shocked to discover his own obituary... Someone at the newspaper had obviously made a great error and falsely reported that he had died. You might say that Nobel was...
IN THE ANCIENT Olympic and Isthmian games, an athlete would begin training ten months before the race... A long-distance runner would submit to rigorous discipline. He would undergo disciplined eating and sleeping habits, an exercise program, and his daily running...
IN THE ANCIENT athletic games, a fragile, leafy crown was awarded the winner... This garland -- called the victor's crown -- was a collection of pine leaves, wild olive leaves, parsley, celery leaves, or ivy. In the Isthmian Games, the...
HE WAS ONE of the most colorful generals of WWII... George Patton swept through Europe like a gale wind with his pearl-handled revolver and his flair for publicity. Someone once asked him, "How do you do it? Where on earth...
DURING A REHEARSAL at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, the renowned conductor Arturo Toscanini offered some constructive criticism to the featured soloist... She was too proud to accept his help, however, and expressed her resentment by exclaiming...
HERE'S A THOUGHT that should give everyone pause: there's no such thing as a private moment... One of Satan's oldest tactics is to weave a phony web of secrecy, casting an illusion of privacy over our sinful choices. He tells...
IN AUGUST OF 1991, I was told I had brain cancer, and my chances of living another five years were, at best, 50-50... When word of this leaked out to my friends, two of them began a letter-and-card-writing campaign, and...
A DONKEY FOUND a lion's skin and put it on... Disguised as a lion, he went into the woods and pastures and threw the flocks and herds into a dreadful fear. At last, he met his owner who saw his...
WHEN THE LEGENDARY Bear Bryant coached the University of Alabama's football team, he had a strict rule against drinking... He also had a star quarterback named Joe Namath. There came a time when Namath admitted that he and some friends...