Serenity Prayer (3)

Friday October 3, 2014

"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."

How do I respond when life treats me unfairly? How do I get serenity and learn to be content with the things in life which cannot be changed?

The apostle Paul wrote: “Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:11-13 NLT).

When Paul wrote this, he was in a Roman prison waiting to hear if he would be executed. Prison, in those days, was a dark, damp, cold, and rat infested cave. And yet we hear no whining or complaining from Paul who was unjustly imprisoned. Instead, he learned to accept the circumstances he could not change.

Paul had come into a deeply satisfying relationship with God. Over and over again Paul experienced the truth that peace in life comes as a gift from God, not simply as a result of our circumstances. Paul allowed God to strengthen him from the inside out. Paul learned to trust God and stand strong in the power of God in painful times of pressure, poverty, and persecution.

The process of recovery is a time of learning to find serenity while also accepting life as it is. Life isn’t always fair. It isn’t predictable or controllable. It can be wonderfully rich in some ways and terribly difficult in others. When we become willing to face the hurt in our life and consider how we have reacted to it, then our discomfort can lead us to break the destructive cycle. Then we can learn to be content with the things we cannot change. We can’t change the fact that our world is imperfect and things are far from the way they should be, but we can choose our attitudes. We need serenity from God to help us change our responses to the injustices of life.

The lyrics of a familiar praise song summarize this lifestyle of trusting God and navigating peacefully through life circumstances that are challenging and changing.

Blessed be your name in the land that is plentiful,

where the streams of abundance flow, blessed be Your name.

And blessed be Your name when I’m found in the desert place.

Though I walk through the wilderness, blessed be Your name.

Every blessing You pour out I’ll turn back to praise

and when the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say.

Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your name.

Blessed be Your name when the sun’s shining down on me,

when the world’s “all as it should be”, blessed be Your name.

And blessed be Your name on the road marked with suffering.

Though there’s pain in the offering, blessed be Your name.

How are we handling the painful circumstances of our past? Relying on God's grace, how might we better handle them?