The Sponge

There are some of us out there who get so busy being religious that we lose track of why. You may know someone like that; all take and no give. To be fair, I know some folks who have an immense capacity for study, but they also seem to be able to find the time to put their faith into action. I'm a little intimidated by believers who do all the things that I wish I was doing. This little poem is about those who fall instead, into the category of "wanna-be buckaroos" All Hat and No Cattle. “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.” James 1:22

The Sponge

The next time you pick up that sponge at your sink,
just stop for a minute and take time to think
how that sponge represents what life is about.
It's not useful at all, until it's wrung out.

On Sunday, you sit and smile in your pews
and listen intently to all the Good News.
You have pamphlets by Stanley, tapes by Swindoll
and you hear John MacArthur on route to the mall
where you rush past a hand out and don’t stop to look
cause you’re in a hurry to get a new book
that talks about living as Christ would today
or how to serve others and how best to pray.

We soak up the teaching in hopes we’ll be blessed
but despite all that study we’re feeling depressed.
We know the right words but they never get said.
We don’t implement anything that we’ve read.
We're just like that sponge that sits on our sink.
If we don't get wrung out, we're going to stink.
Just soaking up knowledge is not what God planned.
We must live the lessons and help those we can.
So, squeeze out the blessings God sends from above.
Wring out the Good News of God’s saving love.
There's joy like a fountain from which we can drink.
But not if our sponge is filled up on the sink.

Jeff Hildebrandt copyright 1999