Serenity In God's Will

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.

The Serenity Prayer is the best known and well loved of all prayers outside of the Bible. In just a few phrases, it captures our daily struggle to decide which battles to fight and which to retreat from; which problems to face head on and which to leave alone. This prayer comforts us because it recognizes that it is never easy for us to know when to take matters into our own hands and when to let nature take its course. Most especially, it reminds us to ask for God’s help in these situations and allow Him to give us the wisdom we need “to know the difference.”

This beautiful prayer was written by the  Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, as part of a sermon he gave in 1937. At the time, the Nazis were in power in Germany. Many of his friends were working actively against Hitler’s regime, and  he wondered if he should be doing more. At the same time, he felt powerless in the face of so much evil. He wrote the Serenity Prayer to show that, when faced with the mystery of suffering and evil, we can always bring it to God and commit ourselves to accepting and doing His will with the power He gives us.

Accepting God’s will is not always easy. We are afraid of suffering and sacrifice. We do not always trust that God has our best interests in mind. We worry about losing friendships, social status or possessions if we give ourselves completely to Him. In hopes that God will somehow change His mind, we struggle against Him, get angry and sometimes fall into despair until we learn to accept the suffering, difficulties and problems life has dealt us. There is no serenity in our hearts until we learn that God’s will is one of those things we cannot change.

However, we can take comfort in the fact that we are not alone. Even Jesus struggled to accept God’s will. We hear in today’s second reading from the letter to the Hebrews that Jesus “offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears....” This is a reference to the Agony in the Garden when Jesus asked His Heavenly Father to change His mind so that He would not have to go through the tortures of crucifixion and death. Over and over again, Jesus prayed, “Not my will but yours be done,” until He was able to accept God’s plan.

Jesus’ generosity in accepting God’s will made all the difference. The letter to the Hebrews goes on to tell us that because of what He suffered Jesus “became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.” In today’s reading from the Gospel of Saint John, Jesus goes on to say about His crucifixion, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” There was a purpose to what God willed for Jesus. At the time, it was not clear to those who followed Him much less to those who put Him to death. However, because of what Jesus suffered, we have the forgiveness of our sins and the promise of everlasting life. Because Jesus accepted God’s will, as difficult as it was, everything has changed.

We must struggle against evil. We must fight injustice. When we are sick, we must look for a cure. When we see people suffering, we must try to comfort them. However, there comes a point when there is no more that we can do. There comes a time when we realize that we are powerless to change things. All that is left for us to do is accept what we cannot change.

If we are to experience true serenity, however, it is important for us to realize that “accepting what we cannot change” is not the same as doing nothing. It does not mean giving up, surrendering or running away. Much less does it mean tolerating evil. “Accepting what we cannot change” means recognizing our powerlessness and giving everything over to the One who is All-Powerful and capable of changing all things. It means trusting that God has a plan and that, in some mysterious way, He will bring good through our suffering just as He brought salvation through the death of Jesus. It means standing tall and living with purpose even when nothing around us is making any sense.

When faced with evil, many lose faith in God. They ask how a God who claims to love them can allow them or their loved ones to suffer so much. If we are honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that there have been times when we have felt the same way. However, what good does losing faith in God accomplish? It does not make the evil and suffering go away. All it does is take away our hope which makes the pain even harder to bear. In the end, all it does is add to our suffering.  On the other hand, when we hold onto our faith in God, when we commit ourselves to accepting His will for us, we find hope, courage and, ultimately, peace.

The Serenity Prayer that we know is only a few phrases long. However, there is a longer version which expresses even more fully how accepting God’s will is the secret to lasting peace. Let it be our prayer as we strive to pray along with Jesus, “Not my will but yours be done.”

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.

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world

as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right

if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen.