Your mind is continually soaks up information, even when you’re not aware of it consciously. God has made us to learn by what we experience, hear, and see.
My wife crochets while watching a movie. She says she can pay attention to the words and images on the television screen while counting her stitches and looking at her hands move.
Many years ago I was preaching on a Sunday night and rhetorically asked, “Do anyone care?” I paused as a tiny voice from the back of the church said, “I do Uncle Richard.” Elias was only 3 or 4 years old and laying on the floor under the pew coloring pictures. He was the last person in the room anyone would expect to be listening and learning.
And who hasn’t seen children playing, who are fully aware of the secret conversation between parents in the other room? They hear every little detail … even the ones we don’t want them to hear. No one had to sit them down at a desk for them to repeat those words you shouldn’t have said.
God marvelously created your mind. Like a sponge, it subconsciously absorbs every message, even the subliminal one that bombards it. The mind is the greatest battlefield. Everything conveys a message; from the nighttime sky declaring God’s glory to the song on the radio planting a seed that sin is acceptable; from the product placement in a movie to the names daddy calls mommy. Everything is teaching you something – whether you are aware of it or not.
This fact demands that as a Christian, you must be a critical thinker, looking for every message, and comparing it to God’s Word.
Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you (Philippians 4:8-9).
Where Living Begins 