Paul faced many highs and lows in his ministry. Building the church in a foreign land was not easy. But Paul was relentless. He never said it was too hard. He never let anything—not his detractors, not his setbacks, not his finances, and not his circumstances—deter him from his mission. He stayed faithful to the work that God had called him to do. Or, to use his own words, he “competed well”; he “finished the race”; he “kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).