The Serenity Prayer
Reinhold Niebuhr's prayer for peace with what we cannot change.
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.
Amen.
About this prayer
Written by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in the 1930s and adopted soon after by Alcoholics Anonymous, the Serenity Prayer has become the prayer of anyone whose life has been narrowed by something they cannot fix. It does not promise rescue from hardship. It asks for the grace to live inside it — one day at a time — without losing peace.
When to pray it
In recovery. When a relationship will not heal the way you wanted. When the diagnosis is final. When you keep trying to change something that is not yours to change.