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The first four lines of the Serenity Prayer are familiar to many, however the rest of the prayer is often forgotten or excluded. There are many different versions of this particular prayer, but they all go back to the pen of Reinhold Niebuhr.
He first wrote the prayer for a sermon at Heath Evangelical Union Church in Heath, Massachusetts. Niebuhr continued to use the prayer in his sermons (dating back to 1934) and it was published in a magazine column in 1951.
The Serenity Prayer has been adopted by many 12-step programs, including Alcoholics Anonymous and Celebrate Recovery.
The most well-known form of Niebuhr's original prayer is as follows:
- God, give me grace to accept with serenity
- the things that cannot be changed,
- Courage to change the things
- which should be changed,
- and the Wisdom to distinguish
- the one from the other.
- 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.