Streams in the Desert and How to Open Doors

How does a daily devotional open doors for ministry?

By God at work, of course, but also by “going before” the author and establishing a Holy Spirit connection.

At least, that seems to be what happened with Streams in the Desert for many years.

The story is extraordinary and demonstrates how often God uses the simple to confound the wise.

Or, perhaps better, the Holy Spirit flows where it may and hearts are opened.

In this case, doors of opportunity.

Open doors for Lettie Cowman

A woman doesn’t start out to compile a devotional that will change people’s lives, and yet that happened to both Lettie Cowman and her friend Biddy Chambers.

Both women dealt with their husband’s mortal illnesses and death by penning devotionals.

In Biddy Chambers’ case, she launched My Utmost for His Highest into the world and let it go.

Lettie Cowman did the same with Streams in the Desert in 1924–except it kept tugging her along after it.

Lettie Cowman reentered the world of ministry when she became president of the Oriental Mission Society (OMS) in 1928.

In the first 17 years of OMS, she and Charles had traveled around the world raising funds.

Charles generally handled the business end while Lettie painted the pictures with her words and music.

Their stories moved people, but the communities they visited tended to be camp meetings, organizations, and churches familiar with the ministry.

While that remained true after Lettie assumed the presidency, something else began to happen wherever she went.

Carrying Streams in the Desert all over the world.

Lettie carried copies of her devotional to give away when she traveled, but when she arrived in Europe in 1936 to speak at Rees Howell’s Bible College of Wales, the book was already there.

Folks recognized the title, particularly when learning Lettie wrote it.

Open doors for ministry appeared because readers felt they knew Lettie–and thus could trust her.

After traveling through the Baltic countries beginning her Every Creature evangelism tours, Lettie continued throughout Europe.

That’s when she discovered how wide the devotional had traveled.

Seemingly everywhere she went in 1936 and 1937, at the mention of Streams in the Desert, conversations vividly came to life.

Rudolph Alfred Bosshardt, a missionary to China with the China Inland Mission, lay in a hospital bed in Switzerland that winter. Chinese bandits captured him and a colleague the year before and marched them 6000 miles over 18 months.

The two men begged to keep their Bibles, but the bandits refused.

They did, however, allow the two men to keep “an old English book as if it was something harmless,” Bosshardt wrote.

The two men kept their copy of Streams in the Desert until it fell apart. It helped feed their spiritual lives.

When Lettie visited him that winter, the two cried together in joy.

Open doors with unusual groups

Among the open doors Lettie encountered during those years were conversations with Indian missionaries from the subcontinent, whom she met in Jerusalem.

Throughout the Middle East, she met people who loved the devotional.

Prince Farouk of Egypt asked to meet her–and she presented a copy of Streams in the Desert.

When he learned Prince Farouk met Lettie, Ethiopian Emperor Haille Selassie requested a meeting.

One of the Ethiopian princesses volunteered to translated Streams in the Desert into the Amharic language.

A group of Russian women in a prayer group in Paris read the devotional and prayed for Lettie.

Everyone was astounded when she walked into their next prayer meeting–they didn’t know she was in Europe and she’d just learned about them that day.

A year later, Lettie met Cuban readers of the devotional.

When they heard of her plans to blanket Cuban with gospel tracts, they signed up to help.

Before Lettie returned to the United States, she authorized various people to translate Streams in the Desert into Swedish, Spanish, French, and German.

Later a woman translated it into Greek. Others followed in Armenian and Romanian.

Many engaged in evangelism efforts as well–the result of the devotional and meeting Lettie.

Who am I?

Lettie wrote Streams in the Desert during the agony of her beloved husband’s fatal illness.

(Some believe the devotional’s power came from Lettie’s emotions poured on the pages).

Nearly beside herself with grief during those years, she actually asked God to take her life if Charles died.

But, after discovering the doors opened by the words God gave her, Lettie shook her head in awe.

As Dr. Ben Pearson wrote in The Vision Lives:

“Who is she that God should have given her Streams? Oh, those Calvary hours [at Charles’s bedside]! But what a harvest now!”

The Vision Lives p. 175

The travels in Europe in the 1930s helped Lettie Cowman came to terms with her husband’s death.

Even she recognized the beauty coming from the ashes of her loss.

The royalties from the book undergirded missionary efforts around the world for many years.

As Lettie always insisted she was a missionary not a writer, that was fine with her.

Later effects

Streams in the Desert‘s influenced lasted a long time–even to today.

Lettie used the devotional herself for personal comfort toward the end of her own life.

It was even “translated” into Braille.

Today, when I mention the book Lettie Cowman wrote, I usually get enthusiastic responses.

“I love it,” readers often tell me. “It’s my favorite devotional alongside My Utmost for His Highest!“

It makes me laugh every time.

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