Tuesday, December 25, 2012

deep beneath our asking.

"How can we pray to you, holy and hidden God, whose ways are not our ways, who reigns in awful mystery beyond the realm of space and time?  Yet how can we not pray to you, Mighty Father, who knows what it is to be man because you have walked among us as man, breaking with us the bread of our affliction and drinking deep of the cup of despair? 

Hear, O God, the prayers of all your children everywhere: for forgiveness and healing, for courage, for faith; prayers for peace among the desperate nations. Whether you give or withhold what we ask, whether you answer us in words that burn like fire or in silence that burns like fire, increase us in the knowledge that you are always more near to us than breathing, that your will for us is love.

And deep beneath 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 you for being what you are, rejoicing with the morning stars that you are our God and we are your children.  Make strong and wild this secret song within until it bursts forth at last to your glory and our saving.

Through Jesus Messiah our Lord.

Amen."

-a prayer by frederick buechner.

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