"God, give us the 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."
From "The Serenity Prayer" by Elisabeth Sifton
This prayer is so simple, yet so profound. To even pen a prayer like this takes a certain degree of self-awareness and acceptance from that awareness. To sincerely pray a prayer like this, feels like an exhale that I've been longing to take.
The freedom to live it out, comes with me giving myself permission to be human. God's teaching me to acknowledge my powerlessness over people, places and things, especially where I feel I need to control them. As I own my powerlessness, I release the fear that forces me to depend on control, by having more power than I possess. Often, it is fear itself that's used as my main tool in an attempt to control that which I feel I must control, all out of fear, not love.
God's teaching me that my main tool to control that which I feel I need to control (out of fear) is simply and paradoxically this:
Surrender
As I'm being taught this power-of-surrender lesson, I'm also learning that there takes a certain kind of strength to be able to surrender in the first place. That certain kind of strength is summed up in one word:
Humility
Humility allows me to see God's strength more clearly, and out of that...to see my own strength more clearly.
God's strength isn't what most humans project onto him as being strong and almighty. His strength is expressed in his humility, in love, and exercising power under, not power over others. What does that kind of power look like? God left me an example, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
God is a secure God, not an insecure one, that's why I've been given the ability to choose, steered by what I believe to be true about God and myself. Instead of being a robot or puppet that God pre-programmed to assure Him control in every matter, He gave away His control. Instead, God designed creation by giving humans and all spiritual beings, free will. He didn't need to control the whole universe by withholding my ability to make my own choices, because that's not freedom, that's control. My free-will frees me up to choose how I will contribute to the bigger picture (eternity, starting here and now) by how I choose to operate within the sphere of the little picture utilizing my choices which are steered by what I believe to be true about myself and ultimately, God. It's also noteworthy to mention that my capacity to cognitively align my choices with my picture of God, comes from a brain that is functioning the way God designed it to - my prefrontal/orbitofrontal cortices steering me clearly without unconscious activity arising from my mid/lower brain, resulting from unresolved trauma.
When I can see my worth and identity as not being attached to a person, place or thing, the result is serenity, which comes from being freed, which comes from knowing the truth about me, which comes from having a true picture of God. How will I know if I have the true picture of God? Compare my picture to Jesus. My identity and worth comes from God, which He expressed very explicitly through choosing to die for me on the cross, in the person who was fully God fully as a human himself: Jesus, whose life and death are a result of how God used His free will to sacrifice for us. Now that is power, that requires supernatural strength.
Basing my worth and all that a human being searches for within, which is love, leads me towards being able to live my life as this prayer beautifully projects for me: inner peace, one day at a time....
