Prayer

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The Serenity Prayer

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.
Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time,
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
taking, as God did, this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it;
trusting that You will make all things right
if I surrender to Your will;
so that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with You
forever in the next.
Amen.
   — Reinhold Niebuhr

 

 

The 3rd Step Prayer ©Alcoholics Anonymous p. 63

At Step Three, many of us said to our Maker, as we understood Him:
God, I offer myself to Thee, to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will.
Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life.
May I do Thy will always!
We thought well before taking this Step, making sure we were ready. Then we could commence to abandon ourselves utterly to Him.
 

The 11th Step Prayer (Prayer of St. Francis) ©Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p. 99 

Lord, make me a channel of Thy peace —
that where there is hatred, I may bring love —
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness —
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony —
that where there is error, I may bring truth —
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith —
that where there is despair, I may bring hope —
that where there are shadows, I may bring light —
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
God, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted —
to understand, than to be understood —
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.
Amen
 

Prayer of St. Francis (another version)

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console.
To be understood as to understand.
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
 

 

 

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