Streams In The Desert, L.B. Cowman

I have a love-hate relationship with devotionals - mostly hate, I confess. I believe I remember D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones arguing that they become substitutes for real study, Bible reading and christian devotion. I  am most certainly in agreement with him. If misused a devotional can promote laziness in spiritual disciplines. My biggest complaint with devotionals is that by and large they are plagued by shallowness. Their value is very often what makes them useless. The brevity mandate undermines the content level. In my experience the few, and I mean few, devotionals that have in some way contributed to my walk with Christ have several components that make them unique. The first, is that they tend to include anthologies. This is how deep truths may be shared in such a short space. Secondly, they tend to include profound (not just "happy") poetry. Thirdly, they tend to have grown out of an intense desire to be faithful to Christ and Scripture. Fourthly, diligence has been given to the proper contextual and theological use of Scripture. Lastly, I've only used them as complements to my regular spiritual disciplines and usually not everyday. Often, I've found myself turning to a small group of such writings in times of personal spiritual darkness in an effort to hear the echo of faithful men and women before me telling how to endure for Christ with deep and abiding joy.

As I mentioned, I have personally found a precious minority among this type literature to be a complement to my daily walk with Christ. Streams in the Desert is one of the few that I would actually recommend to a friend. Recently I've been asked to recommend something like this and since I do not have anything like this on this blog; it seemed a good idea to recommend this one. If you found this helpful and would like me to share more from my "short list of profitable devotionals" just comment or send me a quick message.