No, Acceptance Is NOT The Answer to All of Our Problems

Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 449:

“And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation – some fact of my life – unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake.”

I was thinking about this passage last night, Thanksgiving night, while taking a trip with a friend to visit other friends for Thanksgiving Dinner.

This passage is all wrong. Wrong on so many levels.

There are so many things in our lives which we should not accept!

We should not accept child abuse.

We should not accept homosexuality being forced on young people, being forced onto our culture.

We should not accept people committing repeated acts of wrongdoing.

We should not look at all our circumstances as ordained by God.

He is in control of our lives if we allow Him, if we allow His grace to minister in our lives.

For the rest of the world, however, it is clear that they are not under the guidance of God's goodness or His dominion.

But this notion that "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems" simply does not add up. No, we should not simply tolerate everything. That is wrong.

We should not simply say "Que sera sera" in the face of injustice and evil. There are bad things happening in our world that require a real response. There is no excuse for pushing this into "Oh Well. That's just the way things are!"