Do Your Best and Trust God for the Rest

By Rev. James W. Moore

In Do Your Best and Trust God for the Rest, popular author James W. Moore talks about the idea that God doesn’t expect us to be perfect. Instead, God simply asks us to be faithful, and then God will do and be what we cannot. Moore, through personal experience, shares how “God has the power to redeem! God can take our weaknesses, our foibles, our feeble efforts and redeem them and use them for good. God can take our defeats and turn them into victories!” This book contains a discussion guide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Release date: Aug 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781426775888

Rev. James W. Moore

James W. Moore (1938–2019) was an acclaimed pastor and ordained elder in The United Methodist Church. He led congregations in Jackson, TN; Shreveport, LA; and Houston, TX. The best-selling author of over 40 books, including Yes, Lord, I Have Sinned, But I Have Several Excellent Excuses, he also served as minister-in-residence at Highland Park United Methodist Church.

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INTRODUCTION

Some years ago when I was in seminary, I had an amazing, eye-opening experience that taught me one of life’s greatest faith lessons and changed my life forever. The lesson was this: you do your best and trust God for the rest. I’m sure that I had sort of known this for years, but on that particular day it was underscored dramatically for me and became one of the great light-bulb moments of my life.

I had gone to the hospital to visit a woman named Mrs. Davis who was critically ill with a life-threatening brain tumor. She was scheduled to have brain surgery at 8:00 the next morning. The doctors said there was a fifty-fifty chance that she would survive the surgery, and to make matters worse, the doctors were very concerned about her negative attitude. She’s quit on us, they said. She’s given up. She’s not trying. She has shut her family and everybody out and is lying there trying to die. She is wallowing in self-pity and has lost her will to live. She needs spiritual help. Go to her. She really needs a minister. She really needs you, Jim.

That scared me to death. I was young, inexperienced, and terrified. I didn’t know what to say to this woman who was facing critical surgery the next morning and needed spiritual help so desperately. But then I remembered nondirective counseling, which I had learned about in seminary. In nondirective counseling, the counselor lets a person talk and just grunts every now and then—or at most repeats back what the person just said. I feel so lonely. (Oh, you feel lonely?) I feel so sad. (You feel sad?) I feel bored. (Bored?) . . . and so on. And the person thanks you for the great advice you’ve given!

I decided this was the answer. I would use nondirective counseling with Mrs. Davis in room 858. I was confident, and I strode toward room 858 like the perfect blend of John the Baptist, John Wesley, Martin Luther, Mother Teresa, and the Apostle Paul. I was ready! But then the head nurse ran after me and said, Wait a minute, Jim. We forgot to tell you. Mrs. Davis is so critically ill and the surgery in the morning is so delicate that the doctors want her to be completely still and quiet. She is not allowed to speak.

Are you familiar with the term discombobulated? There went my plan and all my confidence. I was totally discombobulated!

I opened the door a crack and peered inside. It was dark and dismal and bare. The drapes were closed, and there were no cards, no flowers, no family, and no friends. Mrs. Davis was lying in bed, very sullen. Her head was shaved. Her room reeked of death.

I was terrified (and yes, discombobulated) and I went into that room and promptly did everything wrong! I pushed the door open too hard and it slammed against the wall. I walked over to her and accidentally kicked the bed. (You’re not supposed to do that!) I stammered and stuttered and said all the wrong things. Finally, in desperation, I tried to pray and botched up the prayer.

I walked out of that room completely and utterly defeated. I was totally embarrassed. Tears were streaming down my face, and I thought, I can’t do this. I don’t have what it takes to be a minister. I ought to just quit and get out of the ministry. I failed Mrs. Davis. I failed the church. I failed God. Here was a person in real need and I had failed miserably. I was so ashamed.

A few days later, I got up the courage to go back to the hospital. I rushed to the eighth floor. I quickly scanned the patient list to see if Mrs. Davis had made it through surgery. Can you believe it? There was her name on the list: Mrs. Davis, Room 858, Condition: good. I was amazed. I walked down to her room to apologize. This time it looked completely different: the drapes were open, sunlight was streaming into the room, there were cards and flowers everywhere, music was playing softly in the background, and Mrs. Davis was sitting up in bed writing thank-you notes.

Mrs. Davis, I said, You probably don’t remember me . . .

Don’t remember you? she said. How could I forget you? You saved my life!

I said, But I don’t understand. I felt so ashamed. I did everything so wrong.

That’s just it, she said. I felt so sorry for you! You were so pitiful! I just wanted to hug you and help you!

And then she laughed—and I laughed too.

She said, It was the first time in months that I felt anything but self-pity. That little spark of compassion ignited in me the will to live. And the doctors tell me it made all the difference!

That experience with Mrs. Davis changed my life. It was a moment of great inspiration for me because I learned dramatically that day that I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t even have to be good. All I have to do is be faithful and then let God take it from there.

So, to this day, every time I walk up to a pulpit, I think of Mrs. Davis. Every time I conduct a memorial service or perform a wedding or teach Sunday school or go with a family to tell a loved one that the test results are not good, I think of Mrs. Davis. I think of that experience with Mrs. Davis in Room 858 of Riverside Hospital because that "kairos moment" taught me that God has the power to redeem! God can take our weaknesses, our foibles, our feeble efforts, and redeem them and use them for good. God can take our defeats and turn them into victories.

That’s what keeps us going, isn’t it? And that’s what this book is about: the knowledge that all we have to do is our best and then we can trust God for the rest!

1

TRUST GOD WHEN LIFE

IS TURBULENT

Scripture: Matthew 11:2-6

A few years ago while on vacation, our family went together to hear our friend Paul Rasmussen preach. Paul is now the senior minister of that church, but at the time he was a ministerial student at Perkins School of Theology at SMU and a student intern. He and our son, Jeff, have been best friends since they were five years old, and over the years Paul has been like family to us.

We were so proud of him that Sunday morning. He did an outstanding job in the pulpit. In his sermon, Paul said that earlier in the summer the senior pastor explained to him that they had a situation in the youth department and needed Paul to be the interim youth minister until they could find a replacement.

One week later, Paul found himself with a bunch of senior high young people getting ready to go whitewater rafting down the Ocoee River in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Paul said he supposed this was covered in his contract under the phrase other duties as assigned. Most people—and especially the kids—were excited and looking forward to the trip. Paul was not! He was dreading this whitewater rafting experience for three dramatic reasons:

First, he said, I don’t like to swim at all.

Second, he said, I don’t like to be cold at all.

And third, he said, "I have seen the movie Deliverance."

Things got worse when the guides arrived. Most of them were seasoned veterans. One guy had been doing this for over twenty years and in all that time his boat had capsized only twice. But did Paul and his group get him? No. They got Fuzz.

Fuzz was a free-spirited college student who had been a river guide for less than a week. As soon as Paul saw Fuzz, his first thought was, Abort! Abort!

The trip turned out to be an unforgettable experience, but Paul had still not recovered mentally, emotionally, or physically. They rafted class III, IV, and V rapids. For those of you who have never been rafting, that means bad, real bad, and real, real bad! Paul fell out of the boat three times. The water was freezing, and as he was bouncing around in the rocks and the rapids, feeling like a human pinball, he said he was thinking unchristian thoughts about Fuzz—and about the senior minister. After going overboard for the second time, he said he came up out of the water and was sure that he saw vultures circling overhead.

Paul said the third time he fell out wasn’t his fault. About five miles into the trip, for no apparent reason, Fuzz, the river guide, did a weird thing. Right in the middle of a class IV rapid called Hell’s Hole, Fuzz stood up in the boat, jumped straight up into the air, and disappeared into the river. He was gone—lifejacket and all.

Meanwhile, Paul and the young people, deserted by their guide, had to try to navigate Hell’s Hole all alone. They didn’t make it. They flipped over pretty quickly and all fell into the