It’s easily one of the most popular prayers of the last century:
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Written by the American Evangelical theologian Reinhold Nieburhr during WWII as part of a sermon, he first shared it with the New York Times when the well-known preacher and author spoke with the outlet in an interview.
The prayer then grew in popularity when Alcoholics Anonymous adopted it in the 1950s as a keystone of their 12-step program. Since then, the inspirational, timeless words have been framed in countless homes and quoted by a wide variety of political leaders and artists from Jimmy Carter to the rapper 50 Cent.
It’s even been said that the Serenity Prayer — one I’ve seen tattooed on several friends — rivals in recognizability only the Lord’s Prayer. But did you know there’s a full-length version that unpacks the message of relying on God’s strength for decision-making even more powerfully?
Neither did I — until an awesome priest-friend shared it with me the other day. He urged me to meditate on it in order to deal with some challenges I’d been facing. Check it out …
The Serenity Prayer, full version:
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
* * *
Nieburhr’s daughter, Elisabeth Sifton, wrote about the prayer’s impact in her 2005 book The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Times of Peace and War:
“Although it has been adopted by ‘our self-help culture,’ it also addresses the inconsolable pain, loss, and guilt that war inflicts on the communities that wage it; it goes … to the heart of the possibilities for peace.”
It’s no wonder the prayer’s message is especially appropriate during our present times of political and social turmoil. And while the shortened, well-known version certainly hits home in a powerful way, I’m grateful to now rely on the full-length one too.
The second half of the prayer — the part most of us had been missing out on — cannot be emphasized enough. The first two lines of this stanza are especially profound when one considers that a world war was raging while they were written:
...Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
And today we celebrate...