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.

 

It’s the Serenity Prayer from Reinhold Niebuhr. It’s pinned to my bulletin board in my home office. I’ve got parts of it committed to memory. I think of it often. 

There are a whole lot of things I can’t change ever. But there are some things I can change–mostly in myself. And wow, I need to know the difference, so I’m not beating myself up and the people around me to boot.

But it’s the second half of the Serenity Prayer that I love even more.

Living one day at a time,

enjoying one moment at a time.

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace.

Taking, as he did, the 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.

“Reasonably happy.” Let’s call it contentment. It’s being satisfied, letting good enough be good enough, and resting in God’s love. Contentment is a choice. It’s something we can cultivate and make grow. It may look right now like a half dead houseplant in a dark corner of the family room, but it can and will grow stronger and flourish with gratitude and grace and finally our gifts.  

Remember the parable of the prodigal son. It’s a parable about two sons and their father, and it’s about contentment.

Remember the younger son who asks early for his inheritance. His father gives it to him inexplicably. This young man runs off, loses everything, and has to come groveling back home. 

The father tells him to leave and live the the consequences of those bad decisions–no.

The father welcomes him back.

But there’s more. There’s the older son, who’s ticked off at the dead for welcoming his brother home. This older brother is the man who believes he’s earned his blessings. 

And this is us, too, right? We’ve worked hard for what we have. We’ve obeyed the law and paid our taxes. We keep our lawns mowed. We go to church (at least usually). But grace doesn’t work like a paycheck. Grace is freely given. All we have left to do is give thanks.

The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Philippians wrote, 

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:3-6)

The force of his thank you is lost in translation. You have to see it in the original Greek to appreciate how over the top this thank you is. Verses 3 & 4, literally, sound something like this:

“I thank my God, with all my remembrances, all the time, with all my prayers, in all of my praying, for all of you.”

Despite the imperfections and the weakness and the struggle we encounter day to day, we can join Paul in giving thanks all the time, in all our prayers, in all our praying, for each other and God’s gifts. 

And, in doing so, realize that we are–in fact–content. Reasonably happy. In peace.