Springs in the Valley

365 Daily Devotional Readings

By: L. B. E. Cowman

Narrated by: Austenne Grey

Springs in the Valley has been refreshing to the souls of believers for the past 60 years, and this updated edition brings timeless messages of hope to existing fans and new listeners alike.

In this updated edition, Springs in the Valley will continue to offer refreshment and joy to the thirsty traveler through God’s Word and L. B. Cowman’s lilting prose and poetry. Cowman shares cool draughts of wisdom and insight into God’s character, drawn from the Scriptures and purified through a lifetime of experience. In print for more than 60 years, this beloved daily devotional challenges listeners on the themes of hope and renewal. Men and women alike will be drawn to this follow-up to Streams in the Desert.

©2016 L. B. E. Cowman (P)2023 Zondervan

The Best Devotional I've Ever Read!

Beloved readers, imagine, if you please, visiting an enormous meadow with flora so soft and fragrant that you could rest for hours among those aromatic stalks, enjoying the silken smoothness of each petal--but on a day so bright and beautiful that you almost long to frolic like a child again, not resting but dancing. Structure this meadow, if you will, beside a rippling stream of the clearest, sweetest, most life-giving, refreshing water you've ever known. If you've ever read The Pilgrim's Progress, combine those two images with what you picture when you envision the more beautiful portions of Immanuel's Ground and the Valley of Humiliation, complete with a humble shepherd playing his harp and singing his Creator's praise. Wrap all of these concepts together, dear readers, and you will have a minuscule sketch of Springs in the Valley. I will be the first to admit that I do not usually embrace daily devotionals; if I read them at all, I find myself reading them erratically--absorbing two months' worth of material in a single day, before allowing the "daily?" devotional to languish for several weeks before I pick it up again, usually beginning somewhere other than where I left off. In other words, my Bible-study routine is not structured enough to benefit from most daily devotionals. Springs in the Valley has proven to be a beautiful exception to this rule; although I still don't read it conventionally, still find that reading August's entries all the way through sometime in February is appropriate!--even so, this book is well worth a prominent place on any worshiper's shelf. So rich is every entry in Scripture references that you come away feeling as if you've actually read the Word rather than man's thoughts--beautiful! These Scriptures, often from obscure passages, are interspersed with brief anecdotes, poems by the author, and exhortations that tie together what initially appear to be unrelated Biblical passages. The result is unique among Bible-study materials--so meaty that it's like taking an immersion course in a complex language, but so fulfilling that you keep coming back for more. The writing is the closest thing you can possibly come to musical worship, without the instrumentation--worship that uses words and ink as a profound, wondrous stand-in for harp and flute--and the result is that, after several readings, I feel that I am on holy ground. Mrs. Cowman had a joy almost unparalleled for the era in which she lived--or perhaps she was simply more adept at expressing it than most. While this is not a book ABOUT healing, per se, she does acknowledge God's power to heal, and to set His people free almost instantaneously. That is not to say she doesn't describe how He helps us through suffering--she does!--but too often, authors focus SOLELY on getting through struggles, without touching on God's might, His joy, His power. I really appreciate that Mrs. Cowman does both. The narrator is beautiful, vibrant, and overbursting with joy--you just KNOW the Scriptures in this book are life-giving for her, and her voice almost sings, with a dazzlingly bright lilt, as she reads Mrs. Cowman's own commentary. A friend who has been exposed to both the print edition and this audiobook says the print falls flat without the narration, and I must agree with that assessment; the narration style actually clarifies some of the more archaic language, carrying the listener along as the printed words can't. Although Streams in the Desert is the better-known of Mrs. Cowman's devotionals, I would venture to say that this one is superior--there's more meat, more intensity, more JOY pouring from each entry and every page. I would caution readers that Mrs. Cowman VERY occasionally incorporates references to Greek mythology into her writing, and I could certainly do without those, for they don't express the Christ-centered worldview that I've come to expect from her writing--but these are few and far between. I believe I only came across three in the entire devotional. Other than that, this book is right up there with gems like The Attributes of God, The Pilgrim's Progress, and, on a more modern note, Lois Tverberg's Rabbi Jesus series. Given the feminine writing style, I would suggest that this book would appeal most to women, but I've shared it in Bible studies where men were present, and they seemed to be able to relate to the Scriptural emphasis and Spirit-filled applications even if some of those truths were concealed by literary bouquets and blossoms. Now, what are you doing reading my review when you could be reading this book instead!?