Reagan's life was saved for a reason

Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. The bullets sounded like firecrackers, and the acrid smell of sulfur filled the air. Two seconds. That's all it took to change a life ... and the world.

Tuesday was the anniversary of that shot heard around the world. The "shot heard 'round the world" has been attributed to April 19, 1775, when the severely outnumbered minutemen at Lexington courageously began their quest for liberty. Yet there was another shot that occurred two centuries later on March 30, 1981, which also resounded throughout not only this nation, but the entire world.

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The malevolent deed – perpetrated by John Hinkley Jr. – was turned around and used by God for good. It was after his nearly fatal assassination attempt that left a bullet less than an inch removed from his heart, when President Ronald Reagan recommitted his life to God. On his first evening back at the White House, he wrote these words in his diary: "Whatever happens now, I owe my life to God and will try to serve him in every way I can." This started him thinking as to how God could use him in his position as president of the United States.

One morning during his recovery period, while sitting in pajamas and robe in the White House solarium, he came to this realization, "Perhaps having come so close to death made me feel I should do whatever I could in the years God had given me to reduce the threat of nuclear war; perhaps there was a reason I had been spared." Shortly after this, he wrote a four-and-a half-page letter directly to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev which set in motion the process leading to the end of the Cold War.

Reagan never doubted that the Lord had spared his life for a reason and had given him a mission to accomplish. He shared with his son Michael that, "it was only divine intervention that kept me alive." Reagan credited God alone for the many "miraculous factors," which sustained him on that fateful spring day.

This near-death experience had altered Ronald Reagan profoundly, and the world would soon feel its tremendous impact. Only a decade later, the world would see the words fulfilled – which his mother Nelle had taught him years ago, and he wholeheartedly believed – "... that there is a divine plan, and while we may not be able to see the reason for something at the time, things do happen for a reason and for the best. One day what has seemed to be an unbearable blow is revealed as having marked a turning point or a start leading to something worthwhile."

That worthwhile thing for President Reagan was undoubtedly, as former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, "ending the Cold War and tearing down the Berlin Wall without firing a shot."

Reagan felt called by God and entrusted his life to doing God's will after he was spared in the assassination attempt. He fervently believed God had saved him for a purpose and desired to serve Him and fulfill his duty. This sense of divine purpose gave Reagan the added confidence and resolve he required in order to fulfill his mission. Several years after his presidency in 1994, he wrote in a letter to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, saying "the Lord brought us together for a profound purpose." And indeed He did.

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