Tody we stand on the first day of a New Year. It’s a fresh start — a new beginning — and that, dear reader, gets me thinking about the whole idea of fresh starts.
There is a particular moment in the spiritual life that does not get nearly enough attention. It is the moment right after we have said, with sincerity and perhaps a strong cup of coffee in hand, “Well. I won’t be doing that again.”
And then — sometimes within hours, sometimes within minutes — we do it again.
We resolve to pray more faithfully, to speak more gently, to listen more carefully, to stop replying to emails “just quickly” before breakfast. We begin again on Monday. Or Tuesday. Or after Epiphany. Or after the next meeting. Or after lunch.
By the time we reach the forty-seventh fresh start, enthusiasm has thinned a little. The trumpet fanfare has been replaced by a modest triangle. And yet — here we are again. Beginning. Again.
This, I am convinced, is where grace lives.
God, it turns out, is not counting our attempts with the weary arithmetic we apply to ourselves. There is no divine clipboard, no celestial sigh at our repeated failures. Scripture gives us a God who specializes not in “I told you so,” but in “Try again.”
Peter asks how often he must forgive. Jesus answers with a number so large it stops being math and starts being mercy. The Lamentations remind us that God’s mercies are new every morning — which is a relief, because by mid-afternoon many of us have already used up the morning’s supply.
Starting again is not evidence of spiritual incompetence. It is evidence of hope. The truly defeated soul does not begin again. Only those who still believe that love is possible, that change might happen, that grace has not run out, bother to try a forty-seventh time.
And let’s be honest: most of the saints did not glide smoothly toward holiness. They lurched. They stalled. They took wrong turns and doubled back. What made them saints was not flawless progress, but stubborn trust in a God who never slammed the door and said, “Honestly, you should know better by now.”
God’s patience is not indulgence; it is commitment. God keeps showing up because God has no intention of giving up on us. Every new beginning — however tired, however sheepish — is met not with disappointment but with welcome.
So if today you are beginning again, quietly, without banners or bold resolutions, know this: heaven is not rolling its eyes. Heaven is smiling. Grace is already there, holding the door open, saying, “Come in. I was expecting you.”
And if this happens to be your forty-seventh time — well — welcome back. You are exactly where grace loves to work.
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A Prayer
Gracious God,
You meet us not at the finish line,
but at the place where we begin again.
Thank you for patience wider than our failures
and mercy fresher than our resolve.
When we are weary of starting over,
remind us that you never grow tired of welcoming us home.
Give us courage to try once more,
trusting not in our perfection,
but in your faithful love.
Amen.