Paul’s second letter to Timothy has a lot of things going on. Notably, a few important friends have abandoned Paul. It was probably particularly important for him to build Timothy up during this time, but it must have been difficult. When things start going downhill for us, we might be tempted to feel sorry for ourselves, to give up and head home. Luckily, that wasn’t Paul’s style. When the difficult times came, he spent his energy building up his young protege.