Remember finals week?

...where all genuine worship starts, and where it often returns for a dark season, is the barrenness of soul that scarcely feels any longing, and yet is still granted the grace of repentant sorrow for having so little love: "When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you" (Psalm 73:21-22)...He is also glorified by the spark of anticipated gladness that gives rise to the sorrow we feel when our hearts are lukewarm. Even in the miserable guilt we feel over our beastlike insensitivity, the glory of God shines. If God were not gloriously desirable, why would we feel sorrowful for not feasting fully on His beauty? Even though this falls short of the ideal of vigorous, heartfelt adoration and hope, yet it is a great honor to God. We honor the water from a mountain spring not only by the satisfied "ahhh" after drinking our fill, but also by the unquenched longing to be satisfied while still climbing to it.

~ Worship, Desiring God, John Piper


My eyes burn, my thoughts spark sluggishly from one topic to the next. Ahhhh, finals week. All my synapses are consumed with the intellectual tasks at hand, with nary a spare moment to think of anything else. Even writing these few paragraphs feels like trying to squeeze water from a rock! I have been blessed this week with help with childcare (thanks, Mom & Heather!). And I've gotten a lot done. Today a paper is just about ready for submission to an international journal, imagine that! Would be wonderful to see some success in the publication department.

Consequently, I feel my spiritual life is a bit limp this week. I appreciated this quote for Piper, which reassures me that longing is worship as much as feasting. This is a week of fatigued dragging myself into God's presence with little energy for joy or service. So I lay that at God's feet, too. Along with simple praise for strength and brain-power for a busy week of schoolwork.