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For almost thirty years I committed my life to public service, to advancing peace among nations, and to social and economic progress among our own people. President Kennedy once reported a survey which revealed that every mother wanted her son to grow up to become president but none of them wanted him to get into politics to do it. It's a hard life. So many are the political compromises one is obliged to make that moral compromise becomes a constant danger, but I found during my time in the White House that in many important ways my Christian faith was strengthened rather than weakened.

When I became president on August 9, 1974, this country was faced with some of its most serious and dangerous problems in its entire history. America had been buffeted about for more than a decade with shocks to its system that would have paralyzed a lesser nation: political assassinations, a long and frustrating war, riots in our streets and on our campuses, economic distress, and scandals at the highest level of government. Underlying these problems was a crisis of confidence, a crisis of the spirit among our people. Above all, I knew in this time of crisis I was about to enter the most powerful office in the world, an office I had never sought, without having an election mandate from the American people. I did not fear the new responsibilities, but neither did I dare to believe that I could carry the load alone by myself.

In the few hours before the presidency was suddenly thrust upon me, one of my aides asked what verse I wanted the Bible opened to when I took the oath of office. I turned to the Bible which Mike had given me when I became vice-president, and opened it to the Book of Proverbs. Ever since I was a little boy I have used a very special verse from Proverbs as a kind of personal prayer. On that August morning nearly three years ago that verse took on a new significance in my life. It says: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding: in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." That was the verse I placed my hand on when I took the oath of office as president. It was the same verse I would turn to more than two years later on a Wednesday morning in November, the day after the election.

If the experience of the presidency itself led me to a greater reliance upon God, a greater appreciation of my religion, so did some of the critical events of those two and a half years in the White House. I remember particularly well when in September of 1974, just a few weeks after I had taken office, Betty had her bout with cancer. It was during that time that we came to a much deeper understanding of our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. At a time when human weakness and human frailty was such a real part of our lives, we were able to see clearly for the first time what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote that Christ's strength is made perfect in our weakness. Having been through that experience, we found that we were better able to give comfort and hope to others in their time of pain.

The White House—those years—also taught us a dramatic lesson in the mortality of man. Twice I escaped an assassin's bullet, and twice I came to understand in vivid terms another message of Paul, that we should trust not in ourselves but in God, who delivered us from death and preserves us still.

Finally, the presidency taught me how limited is the wisdom of man. The great issues of our time are so complex they sometimes seem to defy solution. I made my share of mistakes in trying to deal with these controversial and complex problems, but the achievements of the administration—from limiting the weapons of nuclear war to restoring harmony and confidence in our own country—all had their roots in a policy so simply and yet so wisely proclaimed two thousand years ago: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

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December (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50