job you have or strive for a new one ?
Turning our life and will over to the care of God is not always simple . We can always cultivate a posture of surrender . We can play whack-a-mole with selfishness each time it pops up . But if we are to align our will with God ’ s will , we will have to come to know what God ’ s will is . And in the actual circumstances of life , that is often confusing .
So , let ’ s look at one single tool . The tool is a classic prayer that has helped millions of people make surrender real . It is known as the Serenity Prayer . No one knows exactly how old it is or who first prayed it . The short version of it is most famous , but there is a long version that is wonderfully helpful :
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 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 .
Surrender is , among other things , the doorway to serenity . We would all like a serene life , but we were born into the wrong world for that one . Serenity requires surrender because if we live at the mercy of our ever-shifting and never-satisfied desires , we will be tugged and drawn in a hundred competing directions . Only full allegiance to a good greater than ourselves can give us a center and a focus . Serenity is not based on pleasant circumstances . Serenity is a by-product of finding a solid foundation on which to ground our life . It comes not when we master our outer world but when we surrender our inner one .
“ ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE ”
Sometimes people want to negotiate a deal with God where they are still in charge but try to get help from him when needed for their little project . That ’ s pseudo-surrender . When it comes to the spiritual life , “ conditional surrender ” is a contradiction in terms . “ Surrender ” that demands God grant us some outcome we want is negotiation . Genuinely turning our life and will over to him includes trusting that he is smarter than us and has purposes we do not yet understand .
What do we do if we can ’ t control people , can ’ t fix them enough or nag them enough or advise them enough ? What do we do as we age and we can ’ t stop that , either ? “ God grant me the serenity to accept the things I
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