Helmer Phenomenology of Prayer Chapter 4

Prayer is one of the most common things among human activities. Over the years and throughout history there have been many different ways recorded on how we pray. Many people see praying nowadays as asking or begging God for some object and often promise something to God in order for us to get it. We don't seem to understand that just because we pray and ask God for something, doesn't mean we are automatically going to get it, no matter how hard we beg or bribe him. I can relate to this, in the way that I used to think the same thing. I used to believe that if I prayed and begged God hard enough for something to happen, then it would. I found this out the hard way when nothing I would pray for was happening and it ultimately made me angry at God. I hadn't yet understood that you don't just get something becasue you beg for it or pray for it. Everything happens in God's way and however he plans for it to happen. God is in the world by the virtue of having already emptied himself, so in order for us to be able to encounter him, we must also go through kenosis and empty ourselves.

In this chapter, the author describes how when we pray, we need to also make room for the sacred as well. It explains kenosis and the way we need to analyze the sacred phenomenologically and also how the sacred comes into the world by incarnating itself. To understand kenosis we can look through the Bible for examples, which will help us to become closer with God.

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