Accepting Hardship as a Pathway to Peace

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. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; Taking, as Jesus 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

A few months ago I mentioned the serenity prayer. Recently I discovered a connection between its author and a hero of mine.

The author of the prayer, was a theologian named Reinhold Niebuhr. In his seminary classes, during the first years of the American great depression, he taught a brilliant young student from Germany. That student, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, returned to Germany in 1931. Before long, darkness gathered. Hitler rose to power, moved against the Jews, began to control the Christian church in Germany, and prepared to sweep over Europe. 


In 1938, war was imminent and Bonhoeffer, still only 32  years old, faced a good possibility of being conscripted into the German army. Refusal would have meant death. He escaped in time, accepting a teaching post at his old seminary in New York.

I can imagine jet-lagged Bonhoeffer's sleepless nights as he began to settle into life in New York. Mental battles must have raged within him. He had chosen to sit out the war in the quiet safety of a seminary professor's office and avoided the dangers of battling the great evil strangling his beloved home country. 

But, in Niebuhr's words, was this a situation that required serene acceptance or courageous action? 


Most people would have whispered a grateful prayer and settled into the seminary professor's office. After all, how could one young Christian pastor change the course of cataclysmic evil sweeping the world?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was not most people though. After just three weeks in New York he returned to Germany, "accepting hardship as a pathway to peace".

He wrote to Niebuhr: "I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people... Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security." 

What courage it must have taken leave New York and stand with the German people as they faced that terrible alternative!

My daily battles are so small and insignificant in comparison to the ones faced by Bonhoeffer. Yet even my little life sometimes presents me with a choice between safe retreat and the courage to choose hardship as a pathway to peace. 

Only Jesus could give Bonhoeffer that courage. Only Jesus could give us that courage.

More next time...