Traditional Prayer
The Serenity Prayer is a short prayer by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, first used around 1932 and made widely known by Alcoholics Anonymous from 1941, asking God for serenity, courage and wisdom.
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. Amen.
The Serenity Prayer is a short prayer by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, first used around 1932 and made widely known by Alcoholics Anonymous from 1941, asking God for serenity, courage and wisdom.
O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the one from the other.
The Serenity Prayer comes from Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971), an American theologian who taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He first used it around 1932, as the end of a longer prayer, and it spread through the YWCA and church groups in the 1930s. In 1941 an early member of Alcoholics Anonymous found it in a New York newspaper, the fellowship printed it on cards, and it has been prayed in recovery meetings ever since. Its three requests are simple and hard: serenity for what I cannot change, courage for what I can, and wisdom to tell them apart. It echoes Scripture without quoting it: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Longer versions that go on about living one day at a time were added later by others. This prayer is for anyone facing something they cannot control, and for anyone in recovery who prays it every day.
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