Most household sponges that we use today are synthetic, but many people are surprised to learn that real sponges were at one time living sea animals. When a live sponge is removed from the sea and its living matter is cleaned out, it becomes useful for household purposes. The skeleton that remains, with its open-celled structure, can soak up and absorb liquid.

Children are like sponges. They soak up attitudes and ideas with which they come in contact. We must be very careful, therefore, about what is allowed to fill their minds.

What are your children absorbing in your home? What are they getting from television and from magazines? As they listen to your conversations, what kind of words and attitudes are being taken in? Are you setting a good example of love for the Lord and concern for others? Is there a warm spiritual emphasis in your home? Are you doing what you can to fill their hearts with God’s Word?

When children become adults, they will give out what they have taken in during their formative and impressionable years. Let’s make sure that those little “sponges” in our homes soak up what is pure, wholesome, and uplifting.

  — Richard De Haan