A PASTOR’S DIVE INTO THE SERENITY PRAYER

Rhonda Doran is our Outreach Director. She gave a wonderful devotional at our staff meeting last week on the history of the Serenity Prayer. I was so intrigued by her presentation that it sent me on my own investigation.

You’ve probably heard the Serenity Prayer read like this:

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.

This is how it is presented to members of 12-step recovery groups across the world. It’s been like this since the 1950s.

The original prayer was written by a theologian named Reinhold Niebuhr. He spoke this prayer at the end of a sermon in the summer of 1943, so the story goes. His prayer went like this:

God, give me 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.

Niebuhr wrote these words, in his own prayer life, during the second world war, when the Third Reich was unleashing unthinkable evil across Europe. Niebuhr felt powerless as he mourned with the church in Germany and the loss of life in the concentration camps.

Many of us have felt powerless during these past several months. We’ve watched the pandemic reshape our society. We’ve watched political and ideological difference rip our country apart. We’ve watched violent protests in the streets, crying out against racial and social injustice inherent in our systems.

And we wonder what we can do.

The Serenity Prayer helps, but it begs the question: How do we know the difference?

This question led me to remember another teacher who had great influence on me as a young leader in the mid 1990s. Stephen Covey is known for his book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. In that book he offers a clue to discovering the difference.

First, he defines two circles. There is the circle of concern on the one hand, and the circle of influence on the other. The circle of concern encompasses all the things that we worry about in the world and wish we could change, but we cannot. The circle of influence, in contrast, encompasses the things for which we have enough influence to actually make a change.

Covey says that anxiety rises when we focus all our energy on the circle of concern—the things we cannot change—that it depletes all our energy and leaves us anxious and feeling helpless. Rather than focus on what we can’t change, he suggests focusing energy on the circle of influence and actually changing the things we can change.

Then, perhaps, by being proactive and pouring positive energy into our life and the world, our sphere of influence may grow. A larger sphere of influence can bring about more change in the world.

So, may we pray the serenity prayer together today and focus our energy on the things we can actually change.

Lord, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.