The Little Boy with the Toy Hammer

A father is on a ladder, patching a leak in the zinc over the back room. At the foot of the ladder stands his four-year-old son with a plastic hammer, tapping the bottom rung with great seriousness. Every time his father pauses to wipe his brow, the boy wipes his too. When the father mutters at a stubborn nail, the boy mutters as well, not quite knowing the words.

Anyone who has raised children, or been an uncle or auntie in a busy yard, knows this scene. Children do not learn mostly from what we tell them. They learn from what they see us do, and they copy it with complete devotion.

Copy Him

Paul borrows that picture when he writes to the Ephesians: “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us” (Ephesians 5:1-2, NKJV). He is not asking for grim effort. He is describing the natural instinct of a child who adores a parent and wants to be like them.

And notice what we are to copy. Not God’s power or His knowledge, which we could never imitate, but His love. The very next words give the pattern: love that gives itself away. Earlier in the same letter Paul describes what that looks like in daily life: kindness, tenderness, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave us (Ephesians 4:32).

What our homes teach

If children imitate us, then our homes are classrooms whether we intend them to be or not. The lessons are rarely the ones we plan.

A child watches how we speak about the neighbour whose goats keep getting into the yard. She notices whether we pay the man who cleaned the gutters what we promised, or argue him down. He hears the tone of voice when the light bill arrives. They see whether the spare room is kept for show or opened to a cousin who has nowhere to stay. They learn from how we handle a disagreement over the family land, whether with patience or with slammed doors.

None of us gets this right all the time. The father on the ladder probably said a word or two he would not want repeated. But the question is worth asking: if my children grew up to treat their homes, their money and their neighbours exactly as I do, would I be glad?

The family resemblance

People often say a child “favours” a parent: the same walk, the same laugh, the same way of standing with hands on hips. Paul’s hope is that, over time, we will favour our heavenly Father. Not because we are straining to perform, but because we have spent so much time in His company that His ways rub off on us.

In a household, that resemblance might look like this:

• Patience with slow things. A house built in stages, a debt paid down over years, a teenager learning to keep a room tidy. God is patient with us; we can be patient too.
• Generosity that costs something. Sharing the breadfruit from the tree, lending the ladder, making room at the table on a Sunday.
• Forgiveness at home. The hardest place to forgive is often the kitchen, where the same people irritate us every day.
• Honesty in dealings. Fair with tenants, straight with contractors, truthful with the bank.

Learning to watch

The little boy with the toy hammer copies his father because he is watching him. He is close enough to see every move. That is the secret of imitation. We become like whoever we watch most closely.

If we want to reflect God’s love in our homes, we need to spend time watching Him: reading the Gospels and seeing how Jesus treated people, noticing His patience with slow disciples and His welcome to outsiders. The more we look, the more the family likeness grows.

One day the boy at the foot of the ladder will climb it himself. Perhaps he will fix his own roof, or his mother’s. What he carries up that ladder, in his hands and in his heart, is being shaped right now in the yard below.

For reflection

• What habit in how I run my home would I be happy for my children, or the young people around me, to copy?
• Where is one place this week where I could show love that gives itself away?

A prayer: Father, I want to favour You. Let the way I keep my home, handle my money and treat my neighbours look more like Your love each day. Where I have set a poor example, forgive me and help me to begin again. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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