Elisabeth Elliot: The father will be too small or too busy to interest the big boy if he counts himself too big or too busy to be interested in the little boy.

Lisa Barry: That's a loaded statement, if I ever heard one. It becomes the basis for today's Gateway To Joy program. Some fathers consider the earliest years of their children's lives to be the entire responsibility of the mother. At first, the baby seems too fragile. At one year, he seems too little for roughhousing. At two, maybe the child has become too unreasonable for the father's investment of time. But as we'll find out today, the father who is detached from his children in their early years will surely stay that way as the child matures. Today is a program for all parents, because the principles apply in some measure to all of us. Stay tuned as Elisabeth Elliot begins week two of this series called Especially for Fathers. Here she is.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking this week about "A Child is a Father's Call." Last week I talked about fathers and mothers. I think I was a little heavy on the fathers. That is, I talked more to the fathers than I did to the mothers, because I do often speak about the call to motherhood.

The gift of a child is God's call, a serious call to a holy life, both to the father and the mother. The existence of that child constitutes the divine summons to obedience. The existence of a child constitutes a divine summons to obedience. God has given you this child in trust. He expects you to father the child. If you are the child's father, then God has called you to father that child. Or if you marry a woman who has children, then you become a father to her children. A stepfather. But it is a serious call to a holy life.

It's not unusual today for the birth of a child to be seen as a nuisance, a surprise, an interruption to an otherwise well-planned lifestyle, a hindrance to ambition. In other words, it is seen as anything but a holy calling.

Well, it's a treasured privilege for me to pass on to you some riches gleaned from many out-of-print books. Last Friday I read you a chapter from my grandfather's book, Father and Son. That book is out of print and there's no use calling Gateway To Joy for information on how to get it. It was written by my grandfather, whose name was Philip E. Howard. He was the son-in-law of my great-grandfather, Henry Clay Trumbull, who wrote a book called Hints on Child Training. That book, I'm glad to say, is in print. You can get information about that one from Gateway To Joy. The author is Trumbull. Now I'm going to read you some more from my grandfather's book, Father and Son, this out-of-print book. This chapter is entitled, "The First Few Years."

"He was a very little fellow, sitting up in his crib in the children's ward. When I came to him on my visit, he seemed more eager to talk than any of the other little boys in the room. He had heard me chatting with the others from crib to crib. When I stood beside him, he looked up. His lips trembled and he pulled one leg out from under the bedclothes.

'I've got a sore leg,' he explained. He had, indeed. 'I'm going to have an operation today. Yes, sir, today.'

I took a good look at the infected leg. Then with the cheeriest smile I could muster, I said, 'Well, youngster, you'll be glad to feel better, won't you? You won't know anything about that operation while the doctor is doing it. Anybody here with you?'

Tears came into his eyes. 'No, sir,' he replied. 'Nobody here. I haven't any mother.'

'What about a father?' I asked expectantly.

'Father can't be here. He's going hunting today.'

When he said 'Father can't be here,' there flashed upon my mind the vision of a hardworking man held by his task. But going hunting? I did what I could to cheer the almost baby boy, and I was not entirely free from the earnest desire to do a little hunting on my own account that day and waylay that father for a few moments' conversation. The circumstances make this seem like an extreme case of irresponsible fatherhood, yet it is not as rare as it ought to be."

Let me pause here in my reading and say that this book was written in 1922. So if things were bad in 1922, how much worse are they in the last decade of this century?

"The man who visualizes clearly and measures his fatherhood unselfishly will not leave out of his program of responsibility the first years of his child's life. The man will have a hard time in the other years of his undergraduate and postgraduate course in fatherhood who skips or fumbles this freshman period.

It's all very well for a man to have the honest conviction that the boy's mother can do many things for the boy much better than the father can. But she ought not to be asked by the father to be both mother and father in the beginning years, or at any time during their life together. There are men who not only have seen this obligation clearly, but who have acted upon it so consistently that their example is a challenge to Christian chivalry and unselfishness and sense of responsibility."

We don't hear much about chivalry today, do we? Or even unselfishness and sense of responsibility. My grandfather goes on.

"Do you recall that passage in John Halifax? 'A little child, little feet to go pattering about our house; a little voice to say, "Father." You cannot think what an awful [that means full of awe] joy it is to be looking forward to a child, a little soul of God's giving, to be made fit for His eternity. If you will link with this joyous and solemnizing forward look, Carlisle's retrospect, the history of man's childhood is the description of his parents, not his mother alone, and his environment. You will find the two meeting like rays of white light upon the duty of a realized and fully accepted fatherhood in the beginning years.

The prolonged infancy of the child is the father's call and opportunity for lasting ministry. To postpone his fellowship with his boy until the 'companionable' age is to miss the mark. No father can fully understand the little fellow whose life is unfolding before his eyes if he regards him simply as a very precious, but highly mysterious and perhaps explosive possession, that somehow belongs to him but is the care of someone else. The father will be too small or too busy to interest the big boy if he counts himself too big or too busy to be interested in the little boy."

I think that bears repeating. "The father will be too small or too busy to interest the big boy if he counts himself too big or too busy to be interested in the little boy."

Do you know that keen little story of Laura E. Richards in her fascinating book, The Golden Windows? She calls it a matter of importance. The angel who attends to things was hastening along when a duke called to him to consult him about the succession to the dukedom.

"I cannot attend to you this morning," said the angel. "I am engaged on business of importance." He went on.

As he passed by a bishop's palace, the bishop called to him to consult him about the great synod. The angel shook his head. "I am on business of importance," he said. "I cannot attend to trifles this morning."

Soon he passed by a king's palace, and the king summoned him to advise concerning an impending attack from the enemy. "By and by," said the angel. "But I am on business of importance now and cannot stop for trifles." He hurried on.

The duke, the bishop and the king followed him to see what such an important matter could be. They followed him into a dingy court where a little child stood crying as if his heart would break. The angel gathered the child in his arms. "Hush, hush," he cried. "It's all right, dear. You took the wrong turning, that was all. She is just around the corner." The child's mother ran to the little group and gathered the child in her arms.

The angel rose up and looked around at the duke, the bishop and the king. "Are you there?" he said. "Now I can attend to your little matters."

"Unless the father recognizes that the prolonged infancy of his child is very rich in these matters of importance, he will have no adequate conception of what has occurred from month to month and what can be brought to pass in the life of the little one for whom he has so great a responsibility. Whence does the little child derive his idea of God? He is soon told by someone that God is his Heavenly Father. But what idea of God does the word 'father' convey to him?"

I'm going to stop there and read some more from this tomorrow, but I do want to draw that last sentence to your attention. What idea of God does the word "father" convey to him?

Someone is listening to me who didn't have a good father. I'm sure there are some listening who didn't have any father at all. You might be tempted to say, "I cannot relate to God as a father, because I didn't have a father or because I had a rotten father."

Let me suggest to you that the only reason that you sense the absence of your father or you are aware that your father is a rotten one is because you do know what a good father is supposed to be. We all know that God is a loving Heavenly Father. We can relate to Him because we know that He is everything that we missed.

Everything that you wished your father had been, that's what God is. Trust Him. To you fathers, be there for your children. Take seriously this call which God has issued in giving you a child.

Lisa Barry: As Elisabeth mentioned, the book she's been reading from isn't available anymore. But we have a few others you'll appreciate just as much. They are included in the special Father's Day gift package, along with the series and a number of other helpful resources. We'll be happy to let you know all that's included inside, so give us a call for more information on how to purchase that.

Our number is 1-800-759-4JOY. That's 1-800-759-4569. Or you can write to us at Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68501. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible.

Tomorrow Elisabeth talks about the power of your example in the teaching of your children. That's next time on Gateway To Joy.