A Little Deeper

Our rank is where our sense of success is measured.  It is word about our power and authority.  It is our way of determining how tall we stand among our peers.  Most systems have rankings.  The military is the most obvious one with its rankings from private to general.  The church is another one with its pastors and Bishops or its monks, Cardinals, and Pope.  The business world has its entry level people and its CEO.  Rank enables us to see our place of importance.  

As we pray deeper into the Wesley Covenant Prayer, we come to those words, "Rank me with whom Thou Wilt."  Since the word "rank" is not so commonly used, it might cause us to pause and consider what we are praying.  Here is a word which causes us to consider our place in society's pecking order. As we pray these words, we are abandoning a need to be recognized as a person of influence, or one of society's power brokers, or someone who enjoys a place of prominence in the pecking order.  These words speak of a prayer which is giving God permission to make us as important or as insignificant as He chooses us to be.  

This prayer is a prayer of total abandonment, and as we move a little deeper into the prayer, we begin to realize it is not just about abandoning things we hold in our hand, but how we want to be seen by others and how we measure ourselves in comparing ourselves to others.  Can we pray this prayer which declares such things do not matter, but that they are at His disposal and then walk away from pride's need to rank ourselves as one of the important?  It is not easy ground to walk, but once we start walking it, we walk into a new land of freedom.