I, like so many others of my fellow Americans, watched in real time with shock the attempted assassination of President Trump by Thomas Matthew Crooks on Saturday, July 13th, just after 6 pm EST.

I recall thinking, just before he arrived to speak, about the brilliant stroke of genius and chutzpah he displayed by calling for a debate with Biden anytime, anyplace, anywhere. And how that cracked open the veneer of the attempt by Biden’s administration to portray him as competent and cogent.

I thought about what would be Trump’s next bold stroke. Little did I know that God himself planned the next stroke in a way that I could never have anticipated: The attempted assassination of President Trump.

Two previous assassination attempts came to mind immediately after witnessing the attempt on Trump’s life, one successful and one a failure. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the attempted assassination of Theodore Roosevelt.

Image: Lincoln’s assassination. Public domain.

The assassination of Abraham Lincoln took place between Good Friday eve and Easter Sunday, April 14th and April 16th, 1865. Robert E. Lee had surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House a few days earlier, on April 9th. That effectively ended the Civil War with a victory for the North.

Lincoln had premonitions and dreams before he headed to Ford’s Theater that he would be assassinated. Yet he attended the play anyway. He had placed his life in the hands of God throughout the Civil War, and that evening would be no different.

The security failures that evening permitted John Wilkes Booth to carry out his nefarious plan almost flawlessly. Yet even the best-laid security plans could not have stopped Booth from succeeding in killing Lincoln as well as injuring others around him in the theater. Lincoln had a rendezvous with destiny.

According to Lincoln’s own words, in his 2nd Inaugural Address on March 4th, 1865:

Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.

On October 14, 1912, Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909 survived an assassination attempt in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While in a motorcade on his way to the Gilpatrick Hotel for a campaign speech, John Schrank shot the former president with a .38-caliber Colt revolver. The paper copy of his speech in his coat pocket, along with his thick overcoat and glasses case, slowed the impact of the bullet that lodged in his chest.

Undeterred, although bleeding profusely, he proceeded to the hotel and delivered a 84 minute address as presidential candidate for the Bull Moose party. Referring to the vitriol that had created a violent atmosphere during the campaign, he said:

It is a very natural thing that weak and vicious minds should be inflamed to acts of violence by the kind of awful mendacity and abuse that have been heaped upon me for the last three months by the papers.

He famously said: “It takes more than that to kill a bull moose.” Roosevelt won his primary but lost to Woodrow Wilson in the presidential election of 1912.

The serendipity of Roosevelt’s attempted assassination in Milwaukee and the Republican convention taking place this week in Milwaukee is surely not lost on many of us. The similarity of the courage and determination of Roosevelt and Trump after being wounded by assassin’s bullets has been commented on frequently the past few days.

Lincoln, if he had survived, would have served his second term as the 16th president of the United States, bringing healing to the torn nation. Roosevelt failed in his attempt to serve as the 28th president of the United States, but his courage and determination is legendary. And Trump, embodying Roosevelt’s courage and Lincoln’s heart of charity toward his enemy, will fulfill his destiny to lead the righteous USA and free world toward an era of peace, prosperity, and well-being. God’s brilliant stroke of genius and chutzpah, in permitting the assassination attempt while saving his life, will help bring that about.