He Will Not Fail You

How long have you been waiting to feel ready?

You may not have chosen the work in front of you: caring for a parent whose health is failing, raising a child you were handed, holding together a job somebody else broke. And the feeling of being up to it never seems to arrive.

David is handing his son a building project of frightening size, and the words he uses are borrowed on purpose. "Be strong and of good courage" is the same charge God gave Joshua before Israel crossed the Jordan: "Be strong and of a good courage." Anyone in that room who knew their history would have recognized it. David is placing his son in a line of people whom God sent, people who did not simply volunteer.

What gives the words their weight is this: David had wanted this job himself, and he was refused. He says so earlier in the same chapter: "But God said unto me, Thou shalt not build an house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood." The man encouraging Solomon had been told no about this very building. Yet nothing in the chapter sounds bitter. He spends it handing Solomon the plans for the temple, which he says the LORD made him understand "in writing by his hand upon me."

Now read the promise closely: "he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work." God does not promise that you will be good enough. He promises to be with you. And His promise lasts as long as the job lasts, however well or badly you feel you are doing. He stays until it is done.

So may you be given what David really promised his son. May the LORD not fail you or forsake you until the work is finished. May He be the one who decides when it is finished. And may He give you enough for the next hour of it today.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 360 is If This Life Only (1 Corinthians 15:19).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna