In Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer, Eugene Peterson writes, “Prayer reaches into the unknown for whatever we sense, deep within us, will provide wholeness, or for what we hope, far off, will bring salvation. There is more to being human than simply surviving; there is God (or gods or ‘higher powers’)—looking for God, pleasing God, getting God’s help.”1 Yearning, then, is among the most universal of prayers, an instinct even the resolutely irreligious have.
