Beginning Again

January always feels different.

The lights are packed away. Perhaps the calendar has emptied again. The air is cold and still. And suddenly we are given something rare in modern life: a moment to begin again.

Scripture is full of new beginnings.

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).

The new year is not a chance to become a different person through willpower alone. It is an invitation to receive God’s mercy again — to start fresh because He is faithful, not because we are impressive.

Peter failed Jesus publicly and painfully. And yet, after the resurrection, Jesus met him on a quiet shoreline and asked one simple question, three times over:

“Do you love me?” (John 21).

Not: Why did you fail?
Not: How will you fix yourself?
But: Do you love me?

That is the question January places before us.

As the year begins, we do not start with ambition but with trust. We do not begin with resolutions but with repentance. We do not begin with confidence in ourselves but with confidence in Christ.

Whatever last year held — grief, joy, disappointment, growth — it does not define what God can do next. The God who raised Jesus from the dead is still at work among His people.

So we step into this year quietly, humbly, and hopefully.

Not because the road is easy —
but because the Lord is faithful.