The Idea of an Essay, Volume 3

64 The Idea of an Essay: Volume 3 Christian girl. But in reality, all sorts of nastiness lurked inside my heart. Because I had barricaded my heart with deception, the sin festered in darkness—and almost no one knew. But though God allowed me to make these unwise choices, he only let me go so far. Eventually guilt began to bother me—guilt that would gradually override the pleasure of my sin. One day, I finally decided to confess to my mom some of the issues that I had hidden. In the painful process of breaking down the barricades of my deception and shedding light on the darkness inside my heart, I realized that goodness lay completely out of my human grasp. Now I had to depend completely on God for the way out. By his mercy I forsook my sin and began to live by his power. By the time I turned seventeen, God had given me an intense disgust for and hatred of deception in any form—so much different from my previous deceitful self. Furthermore, when God showed me my utter inadequacy for goodness, he also started the process of changing my motivations. After realizing the love God had for me in Jesus’ death and resurrection, I became increasingly motivated not by pleasure but by love for God. This gradual change in motivation continues to send out reverberations into all aspects of my life, including my role as a student. In the life of a student, especially one who already studies hard, one’s motivations hold great importance. Paul discusses godly motivation in Colossians 3:23-24, which reads, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.” These verses do not simply say, “Do your work well.” If they did, they would allow for hearty work founded on bad motivations, such as studying hard to gain people’s applause, to raise one’s self-esteem, or to humiliate someone else. Instead, these verses instruct us to do our work “as for the Lord,” which means that not only must we turn out quality work, but we must do it for the right reason: to please God. Hard work by itself is not enough—it takes holy motivation to fulfill our academic duties “as unto the Lord.” Godly motivation for study will also build a student’s integrity. Obviously, when we study with the intent to please God, we will naturally develop integrity: the alignment of appearance and reality. We can express integrity in study by resisting the urge to cheat on