1 Maccabees 4:6-11: in context

It is dawn, and Judas Maccabeus stands in the plain with three thousand men who do not have the armor and swords they wish they had, looking across at the enemy camp: strong, fortified, ringed with cavalry, full of seasoned professional soldiers. By every visible measure it is a hopeless matchup, and his men can count as well as he can. So Judas gives them a speech, and it is worth noticing what he does and does not say. He does not pretend the odds are even. He says, do not be afraid of their numbers or panic when they charge, and then he reaches for the one thing that can steady frightened men who are outmatched: memory.

Remember, he says, how our fathers were saved at the Red Sea, when Pharaoh came after them with an army. He points them backward, to a day when God's people stood trapped against impossible odds and were delivered anyway, and he lets that old rescue speak to this new terror. Then he turns them from their weapons to prayer: now let us cry to heaven, that he may remember the covenant of our fathers and crush this army in front of us today, so that all the nations will know there is One who redeems and saves Israel. His courage is not built on their swords, which they lack, or their numbers, which are too few. It is built on what God has already done and can do again.

Facing an army he could not match, Judas steadied his men by remembering the Red Sea. When I am overwhelmed and outmatched, do I reach for the memory of what God has already carried me through, or only stare at the odds in front of me?