Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Full Version of the Serenity Prayer

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 hardship 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.

Attributed to Reinhold Neibuhr

2 comments:

Elspeth said...

I've never seen the whole prayer before.

Thanks for sharing it.

authenticallyme said...

Your welcome Terry ;)

I am sitting her pondering why it is difficult for us, as people, to "accept this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it". Isnt this what Jesus did? It was only in his acceptance of us as we were that he knew something had to be done for us, and agreed to that. He walked around inn a sinful world, not trying to blot out every social injustice....not promoting or demoting anything, except a true authentic following of Him, to God. And demoting Phariseeism. I know for me focusing on trying to live the 'perfect' life in lieu of homeschooling, quiverful-ling, baking from scratch, penny pinching, etc etc etc, never got me any more authentic with Christ! I used to try and reach an ideal as far as I could go on the outside, and the inside truthfully DID have good motivations much of the time.....BUT the inside was in denial about who I really was. I constantly minimized the purpose of my human existence. And I allowed myself to fall away from the grace of God.

I highlighted that portion of the verse, deliberately...

Taking,
as He did,
this sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it.

He accepted the sinful world. He just didnt join in. I accept the sinful world. And my load is lighter.

Sometimes, more often...one will hear just the first portion of The Serenity Prayer. I like what follows better :)