This scripture is best appreciated in full context. In Matthew 21 (NLT), Jesus was in the city of Jerusalem and had gone into the Temple. The blind and lame came to Jesus to be healed, and He healed them.

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He did and the children crying out in the porches and courts of the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant.

And they said to Him, "Do you hear what these are saying?"

And Jesus replied to them, "Yes. Have you never read, 'Out of the mouths of babes and unweaned infants You have made (provided) perfect praise'?"

The religious leaders were furious because these children were worshipping Jesus, and Jesus didn't stop them. Instead, He goes further to say perfect praise comes from babies and infants. What!? This can't be possible. All babies ever do is cry. How can infants and children know anything? In the natural, we see little children and think … well … they're little! They need development. They would never be capable of anything even close to "perfection".

This is the same mentality of the disciples had two chapters earlier in Matthew 19. They thought the children and their parents were a "bother". In the disciples' minds, it was a waste of time for Jesus to care for the children. There were other, more important, things Jesus needed to be doing. They were not valuing these children to the same degree in which Jesus valued them. They did not see them as the blessings God had created them to be.

If we are not careful, we may, with our limited human eyes, see children as "less than" adults. This is not the way God sees them. From the words of Horton, in Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who, "A person is a person, no matter how small." God loves a tiny forming baby in the womb as much as He loves his grandmother. We all have value. These babies have just as much to teach adults, as we have to teach them. Our responsibility is to open our eyes and mind to the wonder they offer.