It was 55 years ago this month that my 11-year-old self drove a car into a mailbox. Here’s the backstory: For several years our family had made it a tradition to attend the local Soap Box Derby race during our summer vacations in St. Petersburg, Florida. I was always sitting wide-eyed in the stands as I watched boys aged 11 to 15 crouch down behind the wheel to race their home-built gravity-fueled cars two-at-a-time down a hill. I loved it! Somehow watching the cars hit speeds of up to 35 miles an hour as they came down to the finish line through a gauntlet of hundreds of cheering fans was like a bug that got into my system. Someday, I thought, I’m going to do this in order for people to watch and cheer for me. In my mind I saw myself standing on the victory podium, all smiles as the crowd cheered for me!

Imagine my joy when we learned that the Soap Box Derby was scheduled to be held in our area in the summer of 1968. My Dad was all for it and we attended the sign-up meeting where we paid $20 for the standardized wheels, axles, and steering wheel along with getting a rundown of car specs and the rules. Parents could supervise, but the kids needed to do all the hands-on building.

When the day of the big race arrived, we transported my looks-like-an-11-year-old-built-it baby blue car to the top of the hill that had been closed for the race. Dozens of kids and their cars lined up, waiting their turn for the elimination heats which would ultimately yield one champion who would move on to Akron, Ohio just a few weeks later for the televised national Soap Box Derby championship. Looking down the hill I was nervous, but I could taste the glory that awaited!

Reality wound up being far different than my dreams. Long story short, I was placed on the ramp a little bit crooked. Never having driven my car down any kind of test hill before, I wound up weaving back and forth across the hill, correcting then over-correcting with my increasingly out-of-control car picking up speed as it was sling-shotting back and forth. The good news is that even though I probably drove twice as far as my competitor, his car was so slow that I crossed the finish line first. But for some reason, I turned my wheel hard to the left, cutting across in front of the other car and almost turning a full 180-degrees before going head-on into a mailbox post. Rattled and with a bent axle, I decided I had had enough. No more racing for me that day, even though I was offered a replacement axle.

The reason I’m sharing this story is not about the race, but about what happened during the months between signing up for the race, and the race itself. Glory-hunter that I was, I decided about one-week into building the car that this was not only time-consuming hard work, but boring. I wanted to be out playing with my friends rather than taking on the long and tedious task of building that car. But even through my tears of protest, my dad made one thing clear: “You are not quitting. You are finishing what you started. You made a commitment.” So, for what seemed like an eternity, my dad pushed and pulled my miserable self to finish that car. I hated every minute of it. But looking back, I loved every lesson learned about commitment thanks to my dad’s resolve to make the process a teachable moment. . . a very long teachable moment.

In a world where we’re told that we coddle our kids way too much these days, our kids need parents who – like my dad – won’t back down and who are committed to teaching commitment. The dictionary tells us that commitment is an agreement or pledge to do something. It’s an unwavering devotion, dedication, steadfastness, and loyalty to someone or something. This kind of commitment must be learned by our kids today, just as it had to be learned by me, because we are more prone to listen to our feelings than to the promises we’ve made. Listen to your feelings long enough and jumping from thing-to-thing while avoiding the life-shaping hard stuff becomes a habit that’s destined to slowly destroy you over the course of the rest of your life.

For me, the lessons I learned during those endless hours of building that car way back in 1968 continue to echo every day, reminding me that I am to remain steadfastly devoted to my wife, to my children, and to any task to which God has called me. . . even when I don’t feel like it. But even more than that, my dad’s unwavering commitment to teaching me to keep my commitments has served to remind me of the wholehearted devotion Jesus requires of His followers. In Luke 9:62 Jesus reminds us that “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Commitment to Jesus Christ and His Kingdom is a matter of #1 priority for anyone to be his disciple.

Parents, teach this big lesson of commitment to your kids by teaching commitment in all those little moments where your kids push on you to let them call it quits.