1 Maccabees 10:74-81: in context

Jonathan and his men are drawn into battle with Apollonius, who has set a hidden ambush of a thousand cavalry behind them. When the trap is sprung, Jonathan's army is surrounded, and the enemy shoots arrows at them from morning until evening. It is a long, grinding assault, a whole day under fire, pressed on every side. But the account records the outcome plainly: the people stood fast, as Jonathan commanded them, and the enemy's horses grew tired. They held their ground through the day-long attack, and their steadfastness outlasted the assault.

The heart of this account is in three words: the people stood fast. Surrounded, shot at from morning to evening, pressed relentlessly, they did not break. They held their ground, stood firm under the prolonged assault, refused to give way through the long hours of attack. And their steadfastness prevailed, not by a sudden stroke but by endurance: they stood fast until the enemy's own horses grew tired, until the assault spent itself against their steadfastness. They outlasted the attack by standing firm. There is a lesson here for the prolonged assaults we face. Some trials are not a single blow but a grinding, sustained pressure: a hardship that goes on and on, a temptation that presses relentlessly, an affliction that does not let up but continues from morning to evening and beyond. The temptation under such prolonged assault is to break, to give way, to abandon the ground we hold because the pressure is unrelenting. And the counsel of this account is to stand fast: to hold our ground through the long assault, to refuse to give way, to endure, trusting that steadfastness will outlast the attack. Having done all, Paul says, to stand; and again, stand firm. Much of faithfulness is simply not giving way, holding the ground through prolonged pressure until the assault spends itself. This calls us to steadfast endurance under the trials that grind on. When we are pressed relentlessly, surrounded, shot at from morning to evening by hardship or temptation, we are called not to break but to stand fast, to hold our ground, to endure. The victory often comes not by a dramatic stroke but by simply standing firm until the assault tires itself out. Be steadfast, immovable, Paul says, always abounding in the Lord's work. Jonathan's men stood fast through the day-long assault, and the enemy's horses grew tired; and we too are called to stand fast under the prolonged pressures we face, holding our ground steadfastly, trusting that faithful endurance outlasts what is thrown against it.

When I face not a single blow but a grinding, prolonged assault, a hardship or temptation that presses relentlessly from morning to evening, am I tempted to break and give way under the unrelenting pressure, and can Jonathan's men, who stood fast until the enemy's horses grew tired, call me to steadfast endurance, holding my ground through the long assault rather than giving way, trusting that faithful endurance outlasts what is thrown against it?