Just as the waves consistently roll in without my help, life happens without my having a say it. I can’t change some things that bother me. Things keep happening without my influence. That's where the serenity prayer helps.
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 wisdom to know the difference. That is huge.
I have also had a problem with the word “acceptance” and that has to do with my thinking that acceptance is this: me thinking I have to accept what you believe.
No.
Acceptance is when I stop resisting that you may think differently than me.
There is a line in a prayer I know that always gets to me, that defines acceptance:
“Taking this world as it is, not as I would have it.”
When I hear those words, I feel calmed. I don’t have to like it or even participate in whatever it is. I just have to take things as they are and I still get to believe what I believe is the truth.
Wow!
I like how God set that up. It’s just wrapping my brain around it that becomes the problem!
What we resist, persists.
Until we cease fighting everyone and everything, what we resist continues to persist. When we allow this world to be as it is, we can let go of trying to fix that person or thing and focus on our own path of healing.
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.”
Psalm 19:14
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