Daily Manna · Day 31 · January 31
Not One Failed
“There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass.”
Most of us say this verse quickly, and it is worth saying slowly: "There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass." We often use it to mean that God will do the thing we are hoping for. That is not what it means.
Look at what the verse is closing. Joshua has just finished dividing up the land and listing the cities given to the Levites, and this sentence comes at the end of those accounts like the last line in a ledger. It closes a long and bloody process by saying that every good word God had actually spoken had come true. Nothing in it claims that every good outcome any Israelite had pictured came true. It speaks of the "good thing which the LORD had spoken." Two chapters later Joshua turns the same faithfulness the other way and says it plainly: "as all good things are come upon you, which the LORD your God promised you; so shall the LORD bring upon you all evil things," if they break His covenant. A God whose word always comes true is good news only to someone who wants what He actually said.
So the verse never promises that your plan will work, that the illness will lift, or that the person will come back. It promises that God does not leave His own promises unfinished. That is a smaller claim than the one we usually make, and it is a much sturdier one.
Find the promise you have been holding on to. Tonight, read it together with the verses on both sides of it, and ask one question: did God say this, or did I build it out of what I wanted? If it stands, write today's date beside it. Waiting is much easier when you know exactly what you are waiting for, and you are waiting on a God who has never yet left one of His words unkept.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 31 is Afar Off (Psalm 10:1).