“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 best-known and most commonly used form of a prayer written by the American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971).
However, it differs significantly from Niebuhr’s original fuller version which he delivered as part of a sermon at Heath Evangelical Union Church in Heath, Massachusetts in 1934. That original version reads:
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things which 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
This version recognizes that it is only with God’s grace that we can accept with serenity the evils of this world we cannot change. It goes on to ask for courage to try to change only “the things that should be changed.” This is followed by a request for wisdom from God to distinguish between the two. Crucially, it acknowledges that our efforts to “change the things which should be changed” must begin by trusting in God to “make all things right” and surrendering to His will.
The commonly cited version of this prayer, in contrast, asks for courage to change indiscriminately everything we can without first determining whether such change accords with God’s will. It concludes by asking for wisdom simply to distinguish between things we cannot change and those we can. This is very different from asking God for the ability to distinguish between what should be changed with our help and what should be changed but cannot be, at least for now.
It is the original prayer which balances our responsibility to act to change things “which should be changed” with the humility to seek God’s guidance as to what should be changed and the faith to leave to God those things which need changing but which are beyond our human power to accomplish. This combination, Niebuhr tells us, is the only way we can accept our responsibility to advance the work of God’s kingdom and yet, “be reasonably happy in this life.”