Give Your Children a Purpose for Living

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First an invitation to Laura’s birthday party on Wednesday February 7, at 2:00 p.m. Central. You can click on this image to register and then read today’s post below.

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I recently enjoyed listening to The Peacemaker: Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, and the World on the Brink. by William Inboden. The author’s purpose was to tell the story of Reagan’s ceaseless efforts to limit nuclear weapons, end the Cold War, destroy Communism, and bring freedom to people behind the Iron Curtain. That’s quite a list. Though nuclear weapons continue to be a threat, Reagan had astounding success with his other goals. Ray and I watched in grateful amazement while the events were taking place. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher closed her eulogy at Reagan’s funeral with these words:

Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God’s children.

Reagan had been thinking about these goals for years before he won election as our 40th president. If a mentally ill man’s assassination attempt on March 30, 1981, just weeks after Reagan’s inauguration in January of 1981, had been successful, he would never had been able to reach any of them. Reagan had long believed that God had a divine plan for his life. His near-death experience gave him even more purpose. Here is an excerpt from Reagan’s diary from April 11, 1981, the day he returned to the White House from the hospital:

Left the hotel at the usual side entrance and headed for the car—suddenly there was a burst of gun fire from the left. [Secret Service] Agent pushed me onto the floor of the car & jumped on top. I felt a blow in my upper back that was unbelievably painful. I was sure he’d broken my rib. The car took off. I sat up on the edge of the seat almost paralyzed by pain. Then I began coughing up blood which made both of us think—yes I had a broken rib & it had punctured a lung. He switched orders from [White House] to [George Washington University Hospital].

By the time we arrived I was having great trouble getting enough air. . . .

I walked into the emergency room and was hoisted onto a cart where I was stripped of my clothes. It was then we learned I’d been shot & had a bullet in my lung.

Getting shot hurts. Still my fear was growing because no matter how hard I tried to breathe it seemed I was getting less & less air. I focused on that tiled ceiling and prayed. But I realized I couldn’t ask for God’s help while at the same time I felt hatred for the mixed up young man who had shot me. Isn’t that the meaning of the lost sheep? We are all God’s children & therefore equally beloved by him. I began to pray for his soul and that he would find his way back to the fold.

I opened my eyes once to find Nancy there. I pray I’ll never face a day when she isn’t there. Of all the ways God has blessed me giving her to me is the greatest and beyond anything I can ever hope to deserve.

All the kids arrived and the hours ran together in a blur during which I was operated on. I know it’s going to be a long recovery but there has been such an outpouring of love from all over.

The days of therapy, transfusion, intravenous etc. have gone by—now it is Sat. April 11 and this morning I left the hospital and am here at the [White House] with Nancy & Patti. The treatment, the warmth, the skill of those at [George Washington] has been magnificent but it’s great to be here at home.

Whatever happens now I owe my life to God and will try to serve him in every way I can.

Among the ways that Reagan tried to serve God was reaching toward his long-held goals. One of my favorite tidbits the author shared in the book was that Reagan tried for over three years to convert Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev.

President Reagan meets Mikhail Gorbachev for the first time in Geneva Switzerland, November 19, 1985. Courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

During Reagan’s visit to the Soviet Union in 1988, he spoke to faculty and students at Moscow State University. Here is an excerpt from his speech:

Freedom, it has been said, makes people selfish and materialistic, but Americans are one of the most religious peoples on Earth. Because they know that liberty, just as life itself, is not earned but a gift from God, they seek to share that gift with the world. “Reason and experience,” said George Washington in his Farewell Address, “both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. And it is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.” Democracy is less a system of government than it is a system to keep government limited, unintrusive; a system of constraints on power to keep politics and government secondary to the important things in life, the true sources of value found only in family and faith.

President Reagan speaks at Moscow State University on May 31, 1988. Courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

Ronald Reagan learned his purpose in life from his godly mother.

Bedroom in Reagan’s boyhood home where his mother welcomed men released from jail on their first night of freedom

Quilt made by women who had been in Nelle Reagan’s Sunday School class

Perhaps every generation feels that the youth of their day are floundering, but it certainly feels to me that many young adults today have no purpose in mind for their lives. Like Nelle Reagan you can help your own children have a purpose for theirs.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession,
so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him
who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light . . .
1 Peter 2:9

Diary excerpt courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.

Speech excerpt courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

 

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