Written to and inspired by: My beloved peers at TCC – Class of 2025.
May this be an encouragement for you. Keep striving till the very end – only to glorify God. Praying for you all!
Over the past 2 years, I’ve realised a common trend in high school. At the start of high school (year 7), homework and assessments seemed pretty chill. If you passed, you passed, and if you failed, you failed. Though you’d get disappointed after getting a C in math, it doesn’t match up to the disappointment you feel when you get that same mark in year 11 or 12. In Year 11 and 12, the pressure of expectations significantly increases – we have to do well since it affects our whole future. Expectations from teachers, from parents, and even ourselves. Sooner or later, we find ourselves drowning in schoolwork, past papers, and countless hours refining essays. Our phones have been replaced by calculators (which is good, but also bad at the same time). The thought of getting an ATAR seems daunting, and fears about the future start to arise.
Motivations – a common mistake
One mistake that I tend to make while studying, and others have come across it too, is our motivations. What becomes our motivation to study hard? Is it to get a good ATAR to satisfy our expectations? Is it to get into the uni we want? Is our end goal materialistic values? Good grades → good uni → good job → money → good life. While most of these reasons aren’t bad to pursue – such as setting our own goals and aiming high (as all of us should) – we often forget the most important reason and the ultimate goal we are studying for. As high school students, we have a calling to pursue excellence in our studies. However, what we are pursuing excellence for is what a lot of us fail to get right. Our main motivations should never be the goals listed above – it will ultimately fall short.
During my preparation for prelims and trials, I realised one thing: if my main motivation for study is anything other than giving glory to God, then the long hours and late nights I spend grinding are useless. While I can study hard and possibly get an A on that English exam, there is no eternal value to that – it will all be in vain.
Ultimately, everything is determined by God – He knows what mark we are getting before we even take the test. Our part is just to do our best. As long as our main goal remains clear, we surrender the rest to God. Getting a good mark after we’ve tried our hardest and given our all to Christ is merely a bonus, compared to the real value of the glory that you bring to Him by studying faithfully and trusting in Him; this is the real goal we must pursue in the first place.
Another common mistake
Some people may read this and think: since God has got it all planned, studying harder or less makes no difference. Instead, you will find that if our true motivation is truly to glorify God, then we will find a determination to work even harder because we have the right purpose. It is because we first realise that God is worthy and all-satisfying, He deserves all the glory through all our efforts, then will we be able to press on to the very end for His glory alone.
Without realising that our motivations should be purely for His glory, we will never be able to press on till the end in a way that fulfils our purpose.
The question remains: how do we glorify God through our studies? There are 2 main ways we can glorify God, especially in the context of a high school student.
- Work as if for the Lord
“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” (Colossians 3:23-24)
Since God was the One who has given us our skills and talents, we ought to bring the praise back to Him by working wholeheartedly not just in our studies (in everyday life!), but in everything we do – work not for man (not even for ourselves!), but work for Christ, which means, give your all to Him. By working for God instead of man, we are giving the glory back to Him.
- Learn to rely fully on God
“Apart from me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5b)
This is a truth we must always hold onto. This feeling of “helplessness” allows us to hope not in ourselves or our own effort, but in Christ’s strength alone. It is God’s strength that allows us to find an unending motivation like no other in our continual striving to glorify God.
In the end, whether we get a good mark or not doesn’t matter. Instead, what matters most is the glory that we bring to God. It is the eternal value, His glory we bring to God instead of the temporal A+ on the paper.
His Grace is Sufficient for us
The greatest comfort one can find, even in the midst of the hectic moments of life, is God’s sufficient grace that He provides us with day by day.
“His grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9)
It is His grace alone that keeps us going, even through exhaustion, even when we are about to break down. His grace is sufficient, enough, adequate. God will not bring us challenges that we cannot endure. But He will at times allow us to struggle so we can realise that we cannot do it alone – we truly need His strength and grace. And from here, we can learn what it means to fully rely and depend on God.
To finish up this article, I would like to encourage each one of you who is reading this article. Keep striving. Keep persevering. Keep pressing on till the end. But do it to glorify God alone. Never lose hope because His grace is sufficient for us.
To God alone be the glory!
