Attribution to The Serenity Prayer goes to Protestant theologian Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr, but this writer's research finds it inconclusive, thus the word attribution.
I found a few minor variations in the prayer but will give you the unbridged 'original' we have a "We Program." The original Serenity Prayer reflects a similar context as the Lord's Prayer.
God, grant us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed
courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time,
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
taking, as Jesus [some MSS read "He"] 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.
The earliest attribution I could dig up came as follows: researcher Sarah Guzy struck gold when she read a minister Wygul's journal entry dated October 31, 1932. Wygul wrote that "R.N. says that moral will plus imagination are the two elements of which faith is compounded.' "The victorious man in the day of crisis is the man who has the serenity to accept what he cannot help and the courage to change what must be altered."
The second of those Niebur quotations does not fully match the components of the three-way Serenity Prayer, lacking the "wisdom" or "insight" element, but definitely does include the elements involving "serenity" and "courage."
Digging a little further, I found one Mr. Fred R. Schapiro, who edited "The Yale Book of Quotations," who said in an interview, "Reinhold Niebuhr was a very honest person who is very forthright and modest about his role in the Serenity Prayer. Mr. Schapiro went on to say that his interpretation would be that Reinhold probably unconsciously adapted it from something that he had heard or read. Mr. Shapiro, in 2008 was a law librarian at Yale, using new databases of archival documents, had found newspaper clippings and a book from as far back as 1936 that quote close versions of the prayer. The quotes are from civic leaders all over the United States.
Some of them refer to the prayer as if it were a proverb, while others appear to claim it as their poetry. None of them attribute the prayer to a particular source. And they never mention Reinhold Niebuhr.
Whatever the true origin of the Serenity Prayer is, one thing I'm sure of is that this life-saving prayer is rendered in almost every meeting I've ever attended and continues to be recited by many, in and out of recovery.
The Serenity Prayer reminds the individual of the importance of acceptance. Humans can exert an impact on their world, but there are many things that they have no power over. For example, there may be very little that a person can do to alter how other people think. This inability to change some aspects of life can leave people feeling frustrated and full of self-pity or even cause one to wallow in condescension about others. The individuals perhaps used to justify that 'life is not fair' to rationalize their alcohol or drug abuse. Trying to fight against the way things are is a waste of energy, and it can only ever lead to suffering. People find happiness by accepting and working with those things that they cannot change. In Al-Anon, there is a thing known as the "Three C's." I can't Control it, I Can't cure it, and I didn't Cause it. Whether in Alcoholics Anonymous or Al-Anon, there is one who has all power, that one is God, may you find God now.
Serenity is a gift. Courage is a gift. Wisdom is a gift. But all three are gifts we ask for as a decision. God "grant" us the serenity is what we ask. God offers no impositions in life.
Ask, and you shall receive. ODAAT (One Day At A Time).
One new friend asked that I add this to my article, and I quote him without editing: "Serenity to me is ALL our Thoughts, and Wherefore that is within all of Humanity…at every part of your life; that's Every part of Your Life!"
I suspect turning our will and life over to God means we turn ALL of it over. That's our decision in Step 3. Make that decision fearlessly from the very start. And now, a song from some local musicians!