When Cruz Hewitt walked onto Court 1 at Wimbledon for the Boys’ Singles final last weekend, it felt like a full-circle moment. The son of former world No. 1 and 2002 Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt was now playing for a junior title at the very tournament where his father once stood on top of the tennis world.
Naturally, much of the discussion beforehand centred on one question: Could Cruz emulate his father?
As I watched the final, which Cruz unfortunately lost, I found myself noticing all the little similarities between father and son. There was the trademark competitiveness. The intensity between points. The refusal to simply go through the motions. Even the way he carried himself on court had shades of his dad.
At first, I thought, “Poor kid. He’s always going to be compared to Lleyton.” Then another thought struck me. Maybe imitating your father isn’t such a bad thing after all. In modern culture, we often place enormous value on being completely unique and forging our own path. There is certainly something admirable about that.
But somewhere along the way, we’ve almost begun to treat imitation as if it’s a weakness. Yet some things are worth imitating. If Cruz has inherited his father’s work ethic, resilience and fighting spirit, they’re not burdens. They’re gifts.
As Christians, we’re actually called to imitate our Father too. St Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians, “Be imitators of God, as beloved children.”
That’s an extraordinary invitation when you stop and think about it. The creator of the universe doesn’t simply want our admiration from a distance. He invites us into his family and asks us to become more like him. That means learning to love as the father loves, to forgive as Christ forgives, and to live by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The entire Christian life is, in many ways, a process of imitation.
Children naturally copy their parents. They pick up their expressions, habits and mannerisms without even realising it. In a similar way, the more time we spend with God, the more we begin to resemble him. Hopefully, people start noticing things.
Perhaps they see patience where there once was anger. Compassion where there once was indifference. Hope where there once was anxiety. Not because we’ve suddenly become perfect, but because we’re gradually beginning to reflect our Father.
Of course, unlike Cruz, we aren’t trying to live up to an impossible sporting legacy or replicate a famous Wimbledon triumph. We’re simply trying to become who we were created to be: beloved sons and daughters who look increasingly like our heavenly Father.
Cruz Hewitt may not have completed the fairytale by lifting the junior Wimbledon trophy this year. But as I watched Cruz leave the court, I found myself thinking less about the result and more about the resemblance. And it reminded me of something far greater than tennis.
We spend so much of life trying to carve out our own identity that we sometimes forget this truth: becoming like our Father is exactly who we were made to be.
