More About Serenity

A follow-up to the Serenity Prayer.  I like bite-size bits that I can chew on.  This line in the complete Serenity Prayer, caught my eye.....

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace

Accept

No whining or belly-aching. Take your medicine like a man, stiff upper lip and all that stuff. Accept - period.

Hardships

What else do you do with them? I guess you can just say no. Maybe like Job you can sit down, tear your clothes, pour ashes over your head, and scrape your scabs with a potshard. I have done that figuratively on several occasions. But then I got up, washed my face, changed my clothes, dabbed my sores with some antibiotic ointment and faced and/or dealt with them head on. The alternative is to lay down and let them roll you over.

As the pathway to Peace

Had to think about that one. For those visual folks, I pictured a guy toting a small designer backpack, tripping down Peace's path, sidestepping the ugly, painful, and tragic. Finally he arrives at Peace's front door, ready to enter the blessed rest.

But that is not how my life has worked - don't know about yours. If Mr. Niebuhr lived in this day, what other words might he use.   Wilderness trail, forging forward.  Maybe a tunnel. Hacking your way through the stone of indifference and heartache reaching finally to the spot where you see that small glimmer of gold. Knowing it is gold only by the difference of it and the surroundings.

A spotlight in the dark of night or maybe a cool drink to a thirsting man. Is it not so much a pathway as a before and after picture. I will never fully appreciate that cool drink like that parched man, because I have never in my life been that thirsty. How can I fully appreciate that gold if I have not spent years and years, panning and tunneling through the rock and shale. The ink of total darkness allows us the thrill at seeing that shaft of white light.

Peace cannot exist without hardship. Peace is the absence of......

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.
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;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

Caught you, didn't I? How many of you started to read this and pulled out the hand to catch the yawn that would come from hearing this old but true prayer yet one more time? But, you were surprised when it continued, weren't you perhaps even amazed at the words that followed.

This prayer was written by Reinhold Niebuhr, theologian and political activist, in 1937. It was a preface to a sermon he preached and eventually was picked up by a few newsletters, some even to servicemen in World War II. Of course, most of us know the first few lines. They became the byword or by-prayer for the group Alcoholics Anonymous.

I have a friend that is going through professional and financial upheaval during a downsizing of his industry. To top it off, his 17 year old daughter is having serious health issues. In my prayers for the family, the serenity prayer came to mind and I searched the internet to double-check the words I remembered. I was jaw-dropped amazed to read this original and complete version. I decided to bring it before the class I teach on Sunday's and some interesting comments and discussion followed.

I don't want to make this too long, so I will feed it to you in little bites - one or more over the next few days. Open wide!

Lost Prayers

Lost: Prayer -

If found, please return to me.....

This has been my motto for the past few years. The first thing you do when you lose something is to re-trace your steps. So that is what I did. I re-visited my favorite places to pray. Then I dug up old prayer formulas I had used:

A Adoration
C Confession
T Thanksgiving
S Supplication

Still not finding the key, I re-read books that had been like small doors that opened to my original search for this furtive concept of prayer. Nouwen, Yancey, Swindoll, C.S. Lewis, Tozer, Brother Lawrence, Bounds, Murray, St. Augustine, St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila. I was no respector of century or gender - I pursued the Desert Father and Desert Mothers. I sought the prayer disciplines in other faiths - Jewish, Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist. Throughout, I read and read the words of scripture concerning prayer, diving deeply into the Greek and Hebrew.

But I am sad to report, I came out empty. I don't even think empty is the proper word for it. I came out unfulfilled.

I was not so much put off by prayer itself, but of my part in it. I am in a point in my life where I am fully OK with what God has planned for me. I trust Him implicitly. I find that sharing my concern, care, and presence with loved ones in times of trial and tribulation are the best things I can offer. God will lead me into offering more if and when needed.

But somewhere deep inside me I know there is more. I know there is more for me to experience and I have, at times in my life, passed into that realm. But this too seems half empty - as if there is a "thing" I must join God in doing. Part of my mind says He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent so of what use am I. But my heart tells me that God chose to come to this earth and through His actual death and resurrection, vanquishing sin and death, came to dwell within me in my human form. I think as Christians we have become so self-centered. What we feel in worship, what music speaks to me, what sermon benefits me - those are our main concerns. God does not dwell within my heart to give me warm fuzzies. There is some purpose in our symbiotic relationship and as exemplified in the example of the selfless life of Jesus Christ, it should be not be at all about me. If Satan is truly the Prince of this Earth, might I not be the living, breathing, praying, human vessel of God's spirit at work. Is my prayer, joined with my His Holy Spirit, a blazing sword against the injustice, illness, and evils of this world. As I pray for others am I clothing them in the armour my my intercession and standing before them with a shield against the Fiendish Foe of this earth. A foe that seeks out weakness and distress so easily, that only my diligence and His protection can save those from the Evil One.

The more I think and, you could say intercede, I realize that prayer is not a "nice" or "proper" thing to do. It is not about "me" but "God in me" and that is exactly what I have been searching for.

The more I seek what I lost, the more I realize it can never be found. Because it does not exist any longer. It is as if I was looking for something that was so important to me when I was a child and finding it, I realize it longer has the draw or function it once had.

It will always be precious, but there is so much more to see and do.

Prayer

Lost: Prayer -

If found, please return to me.....

This has been my motto for the past few years.
 The first thing you do when you lose something is to re-trace your steps.
 So that is what I did. I re-visited my favorite places to pray.
 Then I dug up old prayer formulas I had used:

A Adoration
C Confession
T Thanksgiving
S Supplication

Still not finding the key, I re-read books that had been like small doors that opened to my original search for this furtive concept of prayer. Nouwen, Yancey, Swindoll, C.S. Lewis, Tozer, Brother Lawrence, Bounds, Murray, St. Augustine, St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila. I was no respector of century or gender - I pursued the Desert Father and Desert Mothers. I sought the prayer disciplines in other faiths - Jewish, Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist. Throughout, I read and read the words of scripture concerning prayer, diving deeply into the Greek and Hebrew.

But I am sad to report, I came out empty. I don't even think empty is the proper word for it. I came out unfulfilled.

I was not so much put off by prayer itself, but of my part in it. I am in a point in my life where I am fully OK with what God has planned for me. I trust Him implicitly. I find that sharing my concern, care, and presence with loved ones in times of trial and tribulation are the best things I can offer. God will lead me into offering more if and when needed.

But somewhere deep inside me I know there is more. I know there is more for me to experience and I have, at times in my life, passed into that realm. But this too seems half empty - as if there is a "thing" I must join God in doing. Part of my mind says He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent so of what use am I. But my heart tells me that God chose to come to this earth and through His actual death and resurrection, vanquishing sin and death, came to dwell within me in my human form. I think as Christians we have become so self-centered. What we feel in worship, what music speaks to me, what sermon benefits me - those are our main concerns. God does not dwell within my heart to give me warm fuzzies. There is some purpose in our symbiotic relationship and as exemplified in the example of the selfless life of Jesus Christ, it should be not be at all about me. If Satan is truly the Prince of this Earth, might I not be the living, breathing, praying, human vessel of God's spirit at work. Is my prayer, joined with my His Holy Spirit, a blazing sword against the injustice, illness, and evils of this world. As I pray for others am I clothing them in the armour my my intercession and standing before them with a shield against the Fiendish Foe of this earth. A foe that seeks out weakness and distress so easily, that only my diligence and His protection can save those from the Evil One.

The more I think and, you could say intercede, I realize that prayer is not a "nice" or "proper" thing to do. It is not about "me" but "God in me" and that is exactly what I have been searching for.

The more I seek what I lost, the more I realize it can never be found. Because it does not exist any longer. It is as if I was looking for something that was so important to me when I was a child and finding it, I realize it longer has the draw or function it once had.

It will always be precious, but there is so much more to see and do.