“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.”

You recognize those words of The Serenity Prayer.  Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, it has become the mantra of the many who have found sobriety through AA.  It speaks of having peace.  But how dear friend? What is the path to peace?  In a word, it is surrender.  And what is it that is necessary to surrender?  A partial list consists of control, desire, expectations, ego, self, people, objects, careers and even life as we have known it. 

In 2015-2016 I spent six months volunteering at The Fort Lyon Supportive Residential Community, a place where alcoholics and addicts came to try and get clean and sober. Here I met people who had lost everything.  They had lost careers, family members, friends, homes and nearly their lives.  The stories that were recounted about the journey they had taken to hit rock bottom, to reach a place where they finally realized that they had no control over anything, let alone their addictions, were sobering.  Though these dear individuals were all unique and different, their stories were strikingly similar.  In order to find themselves, and serenity, they needed to give up control by completely losing control.

Though we may not be addicts or alcoholics (or maybe we are?), we know what it is like to try and be in control, and how upsetting it is when we aren’t.  Think of something—or someone—in your life right now that you are trying to control.  Why is that?  And now think of the turbulence it’s causing you to be unable to control them or it. 

Let me ask you a question:  How much control do you have over the weather?  Do you control the rising of the sun or the setting of the moon?  Did you have control over your conception or birth?  Do you have control over your death?  What control do you have over world events?  What about natural catastrophes that occur?  Did you have any control over what happened twenty years ago on 9-11, or the ensuing events?  Consider for a moment everything that is out of our control.  And now I invite you to consider another, more excellent way.

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray He said, “Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done . .  .”  I’m stopping there, and surely you know why.  THY will be done!  Too frequently we change it to read “MY will be done.”  Praying that petition is acknowledging that we have no control over life or God.  Jesus himself recognized this.  He willingly acquiesced to the Father’s will.  “Father, if it be Thy will take this cup from me”, he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemanee, “Yet, not my will but Thy will be done.” 

What is it that you are trying to control?  Doing so merely is a means of allowing your peace to be stolen.  I encourage you to find at least one thing this week to give up, or give over, to God.  See what a difference that might make for your peace and serenity.

And speaking of that, did you know that there’s more to the prayer than that one verse?  I leave you with the rest of it.

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 in the next.   Amen.