Prayer For Help In Our Topsy Turvy World
Life has been upside down for a while for most of us. There are exceptions. Recently on the evening news we saw the story of someone who returned from a year long solo sail around the world without communication and so the pandemic had not had much of an impact on him. but for the rest of us it has been an upside down topsy turvy kind of season of life.
We need someone to make things right again and God promises to do that for us.
I love the full version of the Serenity Prayer. Usually at recovery meeting we only say the first part of it but when we look at the whole prayer it is filled with helpful understandings of God, ourselves, and life.
Let's pray it simply together and then pray it applied to our life today.
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
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.
There are so many things related to people, places, and things that we cannot change today. They are not our responsibility and we don't have the power to fix them even if they were. We're grateful that You are God and we are not so we can turn these big things over to Your care and trust You to do what's right.
Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
for he satisfies the thirsty
and fills the hungry with good things.
Palm 107:8-9
You've told us to live in today and to give thanks always so we want to focus on that today and every day and make the most of each day and each breath that You give us. Help us to have open eyes to see the simple blessings that are filling our lives and open hearts to allow gratitude to nourish us.
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.
In this world you will have trouble.
But take heart! I have overcome the world.
John 16:33
We know that all of us have troubles and hardships of one nature or another for season or another. We wish we didn't but here we are in this broken world. You know all about these things. You care and You are working in the background whether we see You or not. Help us to learn the lessons that hardships teach us and to welcome the peace that comes as we see Your faithful love carrying us through time after time after time.
Call on me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you will honor me.
Psalm 50:15
Our job is to surrender our will and our lives - every part of our lives - every moment of every day - into Your care and to trust You. When we do, we find joy in burdens being lifted and gratitude in seeing You work.
Do not let your hearts be troubled.
You believe in God; believe also in me.
My Father’s house has many rooms;
if that were not so,
would I have told you that I am going there
to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back
and take you to be with me
that you also may be where I am.
John 14:1-3
Thank you for the hope of heaven that awaits us. As we've said so many times before, you promise us joy and blessing forever. We don't know how much we'll enjoy on this side of the grave and how much of it will await us on the other side but we know that Your promises secure it for us.
So today, we will live with peace and serenity because You are with us working all things out for good and holding us safely in Your love. Amen
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