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.
The serenity prayer talks about acceptance, courage and wisdom to change. The wisdom to know when we should accept the change and when we need the courage to change.
In Trevor Hudson’s book, The Serenity Prayer he says, “Inner change begins when we actually face what it is that needs to change. Almost always it will be something that robs us of our serenity. Something that has become a source of discontent and conflict in our relationships. Something that adds to the tension in and around us. A number of things come to mind. It could be our always wanting to be in control, or our explosive temper, or our making rules for others that we don’t keep ourselves, or our long-held resentments, or our not speaking the truth, or our deep-seated prejudices, or our wanting everything perfect around us, or needing to be in the right. When we are able to identify what needs to change, we are on the road to recovery.”
Change is unavoidable. New pieces of information are given to me every minute and I change or adapt to the new information. I spill coffee on my pants. I bump into a friend I haven’t seen in a while. Another two inches of paperwork gets dumped into my inbox at the office. Someone tells me a funny joke that makes me laugh out loud. I am constantly changing throughout my day. If I understand that change is unavoidable, why am I so resistant to changing certain behaviors?
As I grow, I continue to learn and to unlearn, replacing old ideas with new ones and reclaiming others that had been set aside. As I grow I have to also acknowledge that I have deep-seated patterns. As I grow in some areas, I may retreat in others. Just as I continue to make progress, I may continue to find myself back repeating the progress. It is all change. Each time I make progress, I discover a new understanding of myself; a layer of the onion skin has been peeled to reveal a deeper perspective of myself. So as I may continue to repeat the progress, I repeat it with a deeper, and maybe new, perspective of myself. It is all progress.
It is not easy to come to the place of acknowledging what needs to change. More often than not I tend to deny what needs changing. Instead I criticize those around me. Blaming others then becomes the way I continue to avoid acknowledging what needs to be changed in me. These denial mechanisms are very much part of my life. Until I overcome my deep-seated tendency to deny things, and begin to own the less attractive parts of my life, I will not experience inner change. Progress along the spiritual pathway always requires that I grow in my knowledge of myself.
As I mentioned earlier, I can depend on change happening. When I become willing to accept change, I am not spending my time fighting the process, but I am embracing the process. I am not spending the energy denying and trying to control change. When I can embrace change I can begin to make changes for myself. I am learning to make choices because they are good for me, not because of the effect they might have on others.
That is a lot of change that I need to make. I reflect on my life undergoing change – great change. It can be terrifying. The fear is this: If I let go of the control what will I be left with? What will replace the void that is created? I am letting go of the control and I discover that when I acknowledge how far I have come, I can see how much I want to 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."
I've probably said this prayer out loud a thousand times, and silently twice that amount. It's called the Serenity Prayer, not the Courage Prayer, not the Wisdom Prayer. That is because, no matter what we're doing, before we receive courage or wisdom to change, serenity needs to come first.
I will remember that it only takes a slight shift in direction to begin to change my life. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
