A prayer from Frederick Buechner

How can we pray to thee, thou holy and hidden God, whose ways are not our ways, who reignest in awful mystery beyond the realm of space and time?  Yet how can we not pray to thee, Heavenly Father, who knowest what it is to be a man because thou hast walked among us as a man, breaking with us the bread of our affliction and drinking deep the cup of our despair?  How can we not pray to thee when it is thy very Spirit alive within us that moves our lips in prayer?

Hear, O God, the prayers of all thy children everywhere:  for forgiveness and healing, for courage, for faith; prayers for the needs of others; prayers for peace among the desperate nations.  Whether thou givest or withholdest what we ask, whether thou answerest us in words that burn like fire or in silence that burns like fire, increase in us knowledge that thou art always more near to us than breathing, that thy will for us is love.

And deep beneath all our asking, so deep beneath that we are all but deaf to it ourselves, hear, O God, the secret song of every human heart praising thee for being what thou art, rejoicing with the morning stars that thou art our God and we thy children.  Make strong and wild this secret song within until it bursts forth at last to thy glory and our saving.  Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Frederick Buechner, from "The Hungering Dark"