Covenant Lakeside Hospital is under construction. Hey, it’s a hospital – nothing unusual about that. But down the hall and around the corner from what is normally the main entrance, there is an interesting sign. In big, bold, red letters on a yellow background, the Pastoral Care office trumpets, “TEMPORARY PRAYER ROOM.”
People pass this on stripped-down concrete floors, and the word “temporary” is routinely used with “under construction.” So nobody questions what the sign means. This is the place to go until the normal prayer room is available again.
But my twisted brain being what it is, when I saw it last week, it stuck me as kind of funny. Instead of reading it “Temporary prayer-room,” I read “Temporary-prayer room.” As in the place to go to offer up temporary prayer. Of course, as is often the case, what’s funny today becomes convicting tomorrow.
Temporary prayer? What a crazy idea. Yet we do it all the time.
Temporary prayer asks God for answers with no corresponding lifestyle change. “God, help me lose weight before the class reunion.” “God give me money to pay my bills.”
Temporary prayer bargains with God. “God, if you’ll just get me out of here, I promise I’ll…”
Temporary prayer can be self-serving. “God, we’re sick of this manna. Give us meat to eat.” So he gave them their request and sent leanness to their souls (Psalm 106:15).
Temporary prayer is consumer prayer. It is to the spiritual realm what a Post-it Note is to the communication realm – a short-term message that’s removable, with no sign of it ever having been there.
Now I suppose there is a place for it. In fact, there are plenty of temporary prayers in the Bible. They were temporary in the sense that they expressed temporary feelings. But they were built on an eternal and abiding relationship with the Lord. Jeremiah, Job, Moses, David – these guys didn’t offer foxhole bargains. But they did express some white-hot feelings that changed later.
In the long run, however, God is looking for more. He calls it “abiding.” Abiding prayer is different. Abiding prayer is based on relationship, not just requests. Transformation, not just transactions. God is Father, not a genie in a bottle. And as Father, He abides in us and we in Him. And out of that, Jesus says, “If you abide in Me, ask whatever you want” (John 15:7).
If the best you can offer up at the moment is a Post-it Note to God, by all means, offer it up. Just recognize that He’s ultimately offering something much greater.
