Saturday, December 1, 2012

acceptance, trust, surrender, peace…

remember when you were in school and you took a class, the teacher is always silent when a test is being given.  you can count on that in your life.  GOD’s not going to give you the answer in the test.  you might get it later.  you might not ever get it until you get to heaven, but you’re certainly not going to get it in the test.

millions of people pray the serenity prayer every day.  you’re familiar with this:  “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.” 

that is a very famous prayer by a man named reihold neibor.  but it is edited.  there are eight more lines to the serenity prayer that you may never have heard.  that’s where all the power is.  the power of peace is not in the first part of the prayer.  it’s in the part that they’ve cut out. 

“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 the pathway to peace
taking, as JESUS did, this sinful world as it is not as i would have it
trusting that you, GOD, 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.

it makes a little bit of difference, doesn’t it?  all of the power is in the second part of the prayer.  it’s through the acceptance, the trust, the surrender that you find the path to peace.  

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