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.”
We say it quickly, and we should be slower. There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass. We have used that line to mean God will do the thing we are hoping for, and it does not mean that.
Look at what it is closing. Joshua has just finished distributing the land and listing the cities of the Levites. The sentence is an accounting note at the end of a long, bloody, forty-year process, and every good word God actually spoke had landed. Not every good outcome any Israelite had pictured. The good things 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, so shall the LORD bring upon you all evil things, if you break the covenant. A God whose word always arrives is only good news to somebody who wants what He actually said.
So the verse never says that your plan will succeed, that the illness will lift, or that the person will come back. It says God does not leave His own promises unfinished, and that is a narrower and sturdier thing.
Go and find the promise you have been holding. Read it with the verses on both sides of it tonight, and ask one question: did He say this, or did I assemble it out of what I wanted? If it stands, put the date beside it. Waiting is much easier when you know exactly what you are waiting for.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 31 is Afar Off (Psalm 10:1).