About three weeks ago I was feeling rather dry spiritually
speaking. So I headed to a nearby bargain outlet to see if they had any good
devotionals. They did. Two of them. One was "The Gift of
Jesus," and the other the one I will quote from today called, "Streams
in the Desert - Morning and Evening" by L. B. Cowman.
It's an old classic, but it has been edited and updated in modern language
by James Reimann, and expanded to two devotional
entries per day -- bringing it to 670 devotional readings and just about
900 pages.
L.
B. (Lettie
Burd) Cowman was a tireless Christian worker. Born on March 3, 1870, she
met her future husband, Charles Cowman, when she was 13 years of
age, and married him six years later, on June 8, 1889. On February 1,
1901, the Cowmans left the United States to work as missionaries in
Japan. The work in Japan grew and by 1903 two Bible Training Institutes
had opened in Japan. These schools held classes during the day, and in the
evening hosted evangelical services open to the public. Dozens flooded in
nightly to hear the Gospel. At this time they (along with two other
co-workers) started the OMS (Oriental Missionary Society).
Although
they were making huge strides in their goals, Charles was not satisfied.
This led to the start of the Great Village Campaign in 1913. His goal was
for every person in Japan to hear the Gospel within the next five years. Teams
of missionaries went to every town, village, and home throughout Japan,
proclaiming the Gospel and distributing Bibles. When Charles’ health took a
turn downward in 1917, he and Lettie were forced to return to America, they
received news through the O.M.S. Standard in January
1918 that the Great Village Campaign was complete. About 60 million
Japanese had heard the Gospel, with teams covering 161,000 square miles of
the country. Charles’ health continued
to decline, and as he suffered in pain Lettie also suffered, watching her
husband slowly fade away. Yet it was during this time her best-selling
devotional book, Streams in the Desert, was conceived.
In September of 1924 Charles died. Their co-worker took over as
president of OMS and died in 1928. It was then that Lettie took over the
presidency of the OMS and held that position until 1949.
Just as Charles felt such a strong calling to proclaim the Gospel
to every individual in Japan, Lettie felt a similar call to distribute the
Gospel to ALL nations. They had already been to Japan, Korea,
and China, so they began to make plans to go to India, Africa, South America,
Europe -- all the nations of the earth. In Europe, they
expanded into countries such as Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Czechoslovakia,
a crusade which marked one of the last great evangelistic efforts in Europe
before Nazi Germany took control. In Africa, Egypt was a country for
which Lettie felt a great burden. In December 1941, a crusade began in
Mexico, and over the course of five years, the total evangelical church
membership there doubled. In 1943, the OMS entered South America,
something Lettie never dreamed would happen. The right doors opened, and a
Bible Training Institute began that year in Medellín, Colombia. She
became ill in 1957 and died on Easter Sunday, April 17, 1960, at the ripe old
age of 90. This selection is her devotion for the evening of July 19. Enjoy
Shall
I not drink the cup the Father has given me? (John 18:11)
"To
“drink the cup” was a greater thing than calming the seas or raising the dead.
The prophets and apostles could do amazing miracles, but they did not always do
the will of God and thereby suffered as a result. To do God's will
when you know it will bring suffering is still the highest form of faith
and the most glorious Christian achievement.
Having your brightest aspirations as a young person forever
crushed; bearing burdens daily that are always difficult and never seeing
relief; finding yourself worn down by poverty while simply desiring to
do good for others and provide a comfortable living for those you love; being shackled by an incurable physical disability; being
completely alone, separated from all those you love, to face the traumas of
life alone --
yet in all these, still being able to say through such a
difficult school of discipline, “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given
me?” -- this
is faith at its highest, and spiritual success at its crowning point.
Great
faith is exhibited not so much in doing as in suffering (Charles Parkhurst).
In
order to have a sympathetic God, we must have a suffering Savior, for true
sympathy comes from understanding another person’s hurt by suffering the same
affliction. Therefore we cannot help others who suffer without paying a price
ourselves because afflictions are the cost we pay for our ability to
sympathize. Those who wish to help others must first suffer. If we wish to
rescue others, we must be willing to face the cross; experiencing the greatest
happiness in life through ministering to others is impossible without drinking
the cup Jesus drank and without submitting to the baptism He endured. The most
comforting of David’s psalms were squeezed from his life by suffering, and if
Paul had not been given “a thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor.12:7 KJV), we would have
missed much of the heartbeat of tenderness that resonates through so many of
his letters.
If
you have surrendered yourself to Christ, your present circumstances that seem
to be pressing so hard against you are the perfect tool in the Father’s hand to
chisel you into shape for eternity. So trust Him and never push away the
instrument He is using, or you will miss the result of His work in your life.
Strange
and difficult indeed,
We
may find it,
But the blessing that we need
Is
behind it.
The
school of suffering graduates exceptional scholars."
Hebrews
chapter 11 is "Faith's
Hall of Fame." Listed in it are people who by faith did all sorts
of miracles, persevered against immense temptation in remaining true to God,
and won all sorts of life's battles. Yet after going through a long list
of overcomers, the tone changes in v. 35a, and instead of
speaking of those who, "conquered
kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised, shutting the
mouths of lions, quenching the fury of the flames, escaping the edge of the
sword, and seeing their weakness turned to strength, routing foreign
armies," we find others who did not gain deliverance or
"victory" as we would often tend to describe it.
These
others did not escape by faith but were, "tortured
and refused to be released so they might gain a better resurrection."
They, "faced jeers and flogging, were
chained and put in prison, stoned, sawn in two, and put to death by the
sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute,
persecuted, and mistreated..."
Yet
interestingly, it is not the first group, but this last group -- the
sufferers of abuse, poverty, torture, and death for their faith -- of
whom the author writes: "The world was not worthy of
them." The others are commended are commended for their
faith, but the people in this second group (those
who suffered abuse, severe poverty or destitution, and often torture until
death) are said to be, "those
of whom the world is not worthy." To use the words from
Lettie's entry: "Great faith is exhibited not so much in doing as
in suffering... The school of
suffering graduates exceptional scholars."
In His Service, Pastor Jeff
