September 18th, 2019
“Trusting that You will make all things right, as I surrender to Your will”
True confessions, and with all due respect to Professor Niebuhr, I changed one word in this Serenity Prayer. But the one word makes ALL difference. The original version says that God will make all things right IF we surrender to His will. This does 2 things: 1) seriously overestimates our ability to surrender anything, and 2) seriously underestimates God’s love, grace, power, and sovereignty.
Even when we want to surrender, sometimes we just can’t. Jesus, Himself, recognized this as He said, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41) If God were dependent on our actions and abilities, the grace of God would be robbed of any true goodness and comfort. But, thankfully, God will not be thwarted, for “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6)
And He will make all things right. As St. Julian of Norwich 650 years ago, “all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
“O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (Proper 12 - BCP. 231)
