Jimmy Carter, whose life will be celebrated today at his funeral at the National Cathedral, has always been an anomaly among U.S. presidents.
His one term in the Oval Office (1977-1981) ended in apparent disgrace. Voters, weary of stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis, rewarded his opponent Ronald Reagan with a landslide victory.
He quietly retreated to his home state of Georgia, where he began restoration of a rustic house. Johnny Carson joked, “Poor Jimmy. He always got things backwards. He’s the only president who started out in the White House and ended up in a log cabin.”
Carter, however, got the last laugh. He will almost certainly be remembered as the chief executive with the most remarkable post-presidency. He brokered international treaties, won the Nobel Peace Prize, elevated Habitat for Humanity to national prominence, and faithfully taught an adult Sunday School class into the last (100th) year of his life.
He also wrote 33 books. The first one, Why Not the Best? (1975) was a memoir of his successful run for the governorship of Georgia.
Its title sprang from one of the hinge-point moments of his life – an intense interview in 1952 with Admiral Hyman Rickover, who was pioneering America’s fledgling nuclear submarine program.
Carter, a graduate of the US Naval Academy, dreamed of commanding a sub.
Rickover was a genius. He was also a hyper-driven micromanager, choosing to personally conduct every interview of potential skippers. Over the course of two to three hours, he would drill deeply into each’s candidate’s grasp of strategy, tactics, physics, literature, and history. Such sessions were not for the faint of heart.
In preparation, Carter crammed for weeks. His interview seemed to be going well when Rickover asked, “Where were you ranked in your class at the Naval Academy?”
This would surely be a good moment. Jimmy answered with pride, “I was ranked 59th in a class of 840, sir.” Boom. Score one for the future president.
Instead of offering a word of congratulations, however, Rickover asked a follow-up question: “Did you always do your best?”
At that moment, for Carter, the world stood still. He almost went for the obvious default answer: “Yes, of course, sir, I always did my best.” But that wasn’t true. He knew he hadn’t always done his best. “I recalled several of the many times at the Academy when I could have learned more about our allies, our enemies, weapons, strategy, and so forth.”
He said with honesty, “No, sir, I didn’t always do my best.”
His words hung in the air. There was a long moment of silence. Rickover finally asked, “Why not?” Then, without a further word, he stood up and left the room. The interview was over.
Was Carter accepted into the nuclear submarine program? Yes.
But he never got over that question. The quest for excellence became his ever-present North Star. Carter later said that, aside from his mother and father, Rickover exerted the greatest long-term influence on his life.
So, how about you? Do you always do your best?
We must be careful how we answer this question. If we immediately try to square our lives with Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, “Therefore be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), it’s game over. None of us in this broken world has ever met that standard, and none of us ever will.
Nevertheless, the Bible isn’t sentencing us to a lifetime of self-loathing. “Not-good-enoughness” is not our identity in Christ.
Instead, the apostle Paul counsels us to “forget what lies behind and strain toward what is ahead, pressing on toward the goal” of spiritual maturity (Philippians 3:13-14). And what does that look like? With the Spirit’s help, we strive to fix our minds on “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise…” (Philippians 4:8).
Our watchword must be excellence.
In his book Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian World, Aaron Renn points out that American followers of Jesus, by and large, do not have a reputation for unusual competence in their work, exemplary character in their relationships, or praiseworthy integrity in their sexuality. Few people look at Christians and say, “Now there’s a group of people who are always doing their best.”
How can we ever stand out as the light of the world and a city set on a hill?
We must pursue excellence in telling the truth. In keeping promises. In working without cutting corners. In courageously standing up for those in need. In patiently enduring tough times.
By God’s grace, we must resolve to do our best.
Or as Oswald Chambers put it a century ago, every day is a new day to do Our Utmost for his Highest.
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