There’s this moment in Top Gun 2 where Maverick is sitting in his plane about ready to fly into his mission and He looks at Hondo and acknowledges the risk of death by saying a brief “final” goodbye.

This moment strikes me every time I watch, the emotion between Maverick and Hondo is stoic and courageous. The call into the mission is greater than the feelings of fear over death. The stakes are high but Maverick has trained himself for battle, to stay locked in on the task, knowing full well death is highly probable yet to not dwell on the worst possible scenarios.

Preparing for the Prayer training I’ve been reading the story of Saul and Ananias in Acts 9. Recently I’ve been so struck by Ananias as a simple disciple of Jesus.

Ananias is an ordinary man. He was not a pastor or evangelist. He was nothing special, but God wanted his availability to GO and pray for Saul. He had the willingness to OBEY God.

When God calls Ananias to go to Saul, Ananias knows this is a bold and dangerous request because Ananias knew who Saul was… Saul killed people like him. Ananias has to be scared for his life, YET he didn’t let feelings direct the mission God set before him.

To Ananias, this mission had a lot of risks, but he choose to trust God and go enter his home… and he prayed over Saul, who would go on to be Paul. Ananias may not have changed the world, but he changed the world of 1 person… and that one person changed the world! Small acts of obedience carry great significance.

I think we have much to learn from Ananias and the character Maverick 😉 When we became a disciple of Jesus we are called to be Soldiers. Sometimes God calls us on special missions, like Maverick being called to his special mission. Have we trained ourselves like soldiers, to respond out of obedience to Jesus’ call despite the fearful situations involved? We need laser focus to accomplish the task regardless of the risks. Soldiers accept the risk and train to actually thrive in these situations.

What if the church could actually learn to deny our feelings and train ourselves to GO into a mission because we trained our hearts to say, “yes Lord, send me.”

We know the assumed risk but a courageous spirit fills our hearts to accept the mission.
I want to be more like Ananias, who knows the risks of being involved, yet goes anyways.
A simple man, with a simple willingness to GO PRAY for one person. This moment changed the church and the world.