Change

In the summer of 1943, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a notable prayer which he shared at the Heath Union Church in the Massachusetts village of Heath. As Gary Dorrien writes in the February 24 issue of Christian Century, the prayer has often been attributed to others. Here is the prayer as Niebuhr wrote it in 1943:

"God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things that should be changed,
and wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

We wrestle with change -- both in our lives and in the church. We know there are things that cannot be changed, but we do not always find ourselves agreeing on what those things are. Neibuhr's prayer is for God to give us grace to accept, with serenity, those things that cannot be changed.

Likewise, we sometimes find things that need to be changed and we are uncertain if we have the courage needed to make those changes. Our uncertainty may arise from fear of offending those who oppose change or our own unclarity of whether the changes really need to be made. We pray for God to give us courage to make the needed changes.

Finally, we join with Niebuhr, in this prayer, asking for wisdom to distinguish what cannot be changed from what should be changed. In our prayer for this wisdom, may we always be open to hearing God's answer as it comes to us directly from God or perhaps through the community of faith.

Herman