My Father

By E. Stanley Jones

A little missionary boy was asked what he wanted most on Christmas Day. He was in school and his parents were out in foreign lands and of course he felt their absence. The headmaster of this school said to the little fellow, “What would you like most for Christmas?”

The little fellow looked at the framed picture of his father on the desk and he said, “What I would like most would be that my father would step out of the frame.” I think that is the cry of the human heart everywhere. It says: I wish God would step out of the frame of the universe and would become intimate and tender so that we could see him.

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and it suffices us.” Then one day Jesus turned to us and said, “If you want to know what God is like look at me. He that has seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus is God stepping out of His frame—that personal approach from the unseen. It is God meeting us in our environment, showing us His character where your character and mine is wrought out namely in the stream of human history.

When I say God, I think Jesus. So the gospel begins with God and comes down to us.