The Serenity Prayer as Discipleship Formation

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

The Serenity pray is one of the most well known prayers in the world. It is said every day by Christians and non-Christians alike thanks to its adoption by recovery groups and self-help books. But it is, at its heart, a prayer. Not simply a prayer of petition, asking God to give us something, but a prayer of formation. The serenity prayer is part of discipleship formation. It can help to shape and develop us in our faith and direct us towards how God wants us to live our lives.

In this article we are going to explore what the Serenity prayer is, where it came from, and how it can be helpful for us today.

What is the Serenity Prayer?

The Serenity prayer is best known as a few simple lines that say:

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I should;
And wisdom to know the difference.

This prayer was written by Reinhold Niebuhr in the early 20th Century. The prayer became popular when it was published in a newspaper article not long after the First World War as part of a poem dealing with loss and grief. It was adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous, and then by other recovery groups. It was initially known in those groups as the ‘AA Prayer’ or the ‘Recovery Prayer’ and it wasn’t until after the 1950s that the authorship started to be included in the material.

However, by then, the prayer had been changed.

How has it changed?

The original serenity prayer includes the line “courage to change the things I should” but by the time it becomes adopted as the AA prayer that line is changed to become “Courage to change the things I can.” The ethical dimension of the prayer (which we will return to in a moment) was reduced and instead it became about the capacity to act in the face of an illness which felt like it controlled your life. The prayer was also made longer. It became:

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 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;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next. Amen

Everything after “and wisdom to know the difference” comes from different sources than Niebuhr. That doesn’t make it wrong or bad, it simply means that the prayer as a whole cannot be attributed to Niebuhr. It also means we should make sure we take time to understand what the prayer is actually saying. Because the Serenity Prayer is more than just asking God for help, it is a process of discipleship formation. When we allow the words of the prayer to inhabit us, rather than simply saying them as a kind of mantra, then it changes how we see ourselves and the world.

The Communal Dimensions of the Serenity Prayer

While the language of the prayer is written with individual pronouns “grant me…”, “If I surrender…” etc. But the prayer itself is about the world outside of us. It directs us towards us other people, because the way it calls us to live our life is not simply about my inner experience. It is about how I see other people, and about how I see them.

But the communal dimension of the Serenity Prayer goes beyond how I see others. It is a call to formation together. When a group says the prayer together, we are inviting each other to join in with that task. We are saying it not just for ourselves, but for each other. Recognising in each other someone who is on the same journey as we are. To take the world as it is means recognising our neighbour for who they are rather than returning to our interests and desires.

What Does the Serenity Prayer Actually Ask?

The Serenity Prayer works through a sequence of four verses, each bringing their own lesson to learn.

Grant Me Serenity

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.

This is the starting point. We recognise that Serenity, the capacity to know peace even in times of trouble, does not come from within us. We need God to grant us Serenity. If Serenity is something we can gain by working hard or following a programme, then rather than being true peace, it becomes another task to fulfil, something we have to work at, and therefore also something we can fail at. But true serenity comes as a gift from God.

Serenity isn’t about the absence of conflict, struggle, or suffering, it is about finding peace in the middle of everything going on in our life. The peace that comes as the gift of the Holy Spirit and is rooted in the person, attention, and love of Jesus. We ask for that Serenity not for its own sake, but so that we can act according to God’s will.

We need Serenity to be able to know the difference between the things we can’t change and the things we should change. The word for Wisdom is rooted in the idea of hearing, and Serenity is part of that. Without the inner peace that Christ gives to us we cannot hear the voice of the Spirit as it leads us towards a life shaped by the Gospel. We will strive to change things that actually cannot be changed. We will waste our energy and our hope by working for impossible things that we are convinced if we can just get hold of will change our life. We need the wisdom that comes from being able to hear the Spirit to recognise what we cannot change. We also need the courage of faith to be able to make the hard choices and actually change the things we need to change, the things we should, even if it is hard or we don’t want to.

Everyone is welcome as they are, but no one should stay as they are, because everyone is broken, and everyone needs healing. That is the message of the Gospel, and the gift of Serenity helps us to know that need for healing each and every day.

One Day at a Time

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Serenity is the antidote to the besetting concern of our modern world. We live our lives constantly looking forwards and living backwards. We dwell in our past, in the regrets and the guilt and the failures and the broken dreams of what our life could or should have been. We spend so much time looking to the future, hoping for what might be different, dreaming of the day when things will change, when that one thing happens that will change everything for us. So few of us actually spend much time in the present. But the present is the only reality that exists. It is where we are, and the flight to the past or the future takes us away from our reality.

This isn’t about not planning for the future or not learning from the past. It is about grounding ourselves in the present moment, knowing our life for where it is, and not constantly thinking about what it could be. You are where you are. You can, and perhaps should, work to change that. But you cannot move away from where you are without first knowing where you are standing. It is about accepting the reality of your life.

But we need to be careful here. Acceptance doesn’t mean saying that things are good, or that God wants them to happen. If you are in a situation that is harmful or abusive, accepting the reality of that doesn’t mean allowing it to continue. Acceptance doesn’t mean going “it is what it is” and letting it go or saying “God will bring good out of it” or “this is to teach me something.” Acceptance is the first step to action.

Acceptance stops us lying to ourselves, and makes us treat reality as it is, so that we can try and change it. The hardships we experience are not a pre-requisite of peace. They are not the way that we find peace. Our pain and suffering are not necessary and we should not accept them as good or desired. Instead, we recognise that to make changes in our life we will need to make choices that will be difficult and potentially costly. This is part of what it means to follow Christ.

The World as It Is

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;

Just as we must start with the reality of where we are, we must also start with the reality of where the world is. So much of our life is spent in denial. But Discipleship Formation requires truth. This is why the Serenity Prayer calls us to acceptance and recognition of reality as part of our discipleship formation. The world is the way is it is. We have to say true things about reality, not deny it or sugar coat it. Even when it is painful. Even when the world, or our own life, isn’t the way we want it to be. We must say the truth.

But that truth does not exist for itself. It is for a reason, for a purpose. By recognising our own limitations to change the world, and by identifying our sphere of influence, we are brought to a place of trust. This goes back to the first part of the serenity prayer. The call to Serenity is to be able to tell the difference between the things that we can’t change and the things that we should change. We have to trust in God when it comes to the things that we can’t change, recognising that God’s plans go beyond our own. For the things that we can change, we need to surrender to God’s will. Because very often the things we should change are things we don’t want to change. But our discipleship formation means making those hard choices. And so we need to surrender.

In surrendering we find the freedom to live one day at a time and enjoy one moment at a time. Because we are not constantly scrabbling from one day to the next, anxious about our future, trying to control what cannot be controlled, we are able to live freely in the grace of God. Our Serenity comes when we let go of control, and put our trust wholly in God’s will for our life.

Reasonably Happy

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next. Amen

The prayer finishes the way it began. With reality. We recognise that life will not always be easy, that there will be hardships and struggle. We can be reasonably happy in this life, because no matter how happy we are, there will always be suffering and difficulty and loss alongside of our happiness. Our joy can be made complete in Christ, and can be sustained throughout any difficulty. But our happiness is dependent upon the conditions of our life and so we recognise we can only ever be reasonably happy.

But we approach this with the promise of God’s future reality. We live our life with the sure and certain hope of the resurrection, and the life which is to come, where there will be no tears, no pain, and no darkness. Our life now is not the final word on our existence. It is simply the current part of our journey. Living one day at a time also recognises that our days now are not only defined by this life but by what will come. Where our reasonable happiness now will one day be supreme happiness when we live with Christ.

Even in the worst times, we can sustain this hope for the future. This is the root of our Serenity. Not just that things will be made right now, but that everything will be made right in the end. God’s love and God’s justice are at work and all things will be well in the end.

The Ethical Dimension of the Serenity Prayer

The Serenity Prayer carries an ethical dimension for our Discipleship Formation. Right in the opening lines, when it asks for the “courage to change the things I should” there is the implicit assumption of ethical responsibility.

Understanding what we should do, rather than what we can do, is an ethical choice. It’s easier to have the courage to do the things we can. There is less choice there. It is simply a matter of being able to do what we can, even when its scary. But choosing what we should do out of the various options requires wisdom and discernment.

That is why we ask for the wisdom to tell the difference. Wisdom that comes from the Holy Spirit. When King Solomon asked for wisdom, the word used in Hebrew is closer to ‘hearing’ than the English word for wisdom or knowledge. To have wisdom means to listen to the Holy Spirit, to let God rule in our lives. Which is why the prayer also talks about surrendering our will to God’s.

The ethical decision then ceases to be a decision and instead becomes a sacred habit. The choice to act with love, forgiveness, and compassion, is no longer an active choice and is instead simply who we are. That is the aim of formation. Not to increase our choice, but to secure our obedience to the will of God.

The Serenity Prayer and the Cross

Ultimately the Serenity Prayer is settled on the cross. Our serenity, our peace, and our wisdom, are all grounded in the God who was willing to suffer and die for us.

Our hope is not in a far off God, one who is indifferent or who does not know what it is like to live a mortal life. Our God became human, accepted suffering, endured death, and overcome it through love. This is the path that we are called to take, and this is the path that the Serenity prayer prepares us.

Jesus took the world as it is, coming into it and being part of it. God did not just magically fix everything. God became physically part of our story so that we can be bound to God through our humanity.

So we can say with confidence that healing is possible. That Jesus wants us to be healed. And that God will heal us. In this life, and perfectly in the life to come.

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