Perseverance

None of these things move me..., so that I may finish my race with joy. (Acts 20:24)

About 200 years ago...Jonas Hanway, in his travels in foreign countries,...discovered the...little-known umbrella. He decided to introduce it to England.... Many people poked fun at him, however, and young boys often pelted him with cabbages and rotten eggs because they considered him peculiar. Hanway never let this stop him, even though he was ridiculed for thirty years as "the umbrella man." Eventually people recognized the usefulness of the umbrella....

A spiritual parallel...is found in the perseverance and faithfulness of the apostle Paul. [He] was kept in cruel Roman dungeons and endured terrible persecution,...[but] he clung to the truth of the gospel, which is the Lord had commissioned him to proclaim to the world.