WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE TO (RE)START

April 11, 2025

 

This year seems like a good time to start over.

But what do you do when you need to start over? What do you do when starting over is not really an option, but an obligation?

For several years now, I’ve always wondered what to do when life seems to take an unexpected turn. The past two years, since January of 2024, my life has literally been turned upside down. I’ve had to rethink everything…everything I believed, everything I thought was true, everything that mattered to me, was just no longer certain. I had to start digging deep, and figuring out something crucial: what did I really want out of life?

And do you know that to this day, I am still not certain?

You would think after 15 months and five seasons of life, that clarity would have come through, and that I would have had some grand revelation changing the course of my direction.

But, it seems as though that happens quite a bit. The change of the season brings about changes in me. Though there are some certainties I can count on (I can count them all on one hand), I believe that life was meant for change. Like all the time. Some people used to say to me that I was never consistent, that I was always either changing something up or at least wanting to change.

But honestly, what is wrong with that?

The thing I am reminded of is that only God is unchanging…I hear the word immutable used to describe His essence, and think yes, that is Him. But we, as humans, all know that not only are we constantly exposed to change around us, but we are dynamic beings ourselves.

Scripture says that God “never changes or casts a shifting shadow” (James 1:17b), and that when we struggle to maintain loyalty to God, we are as “unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind” (verse 6b), resulting in us being “unstable in everything (we) do” (verse 8). Looking at all of this together, it’s easy to assume that humanity is forever lost due to our proclivity to always be shifting and changing our ways throughout our lives.

But we know this is not how the story goes. God knows full well we would struggle with our divided loyalties between Him and the world, and understanding that we constantly change our moods, our relationships, and all manner of things, sometimes on a daily basis. But He still loves us through all of that, and does not look at us as though He were a stern father, expecting us to be perfect in all that we do. He is not surprised at all that are veritable changlings on this planet. I have a feeling He knew this was going to happen. So He planned for it.

So how do you start over when you are not certain about where you are going?

One of my favorite lines that constantly comes back to my mind is this:

when you don’t know where to start, start at the beginning…

It’s one of those statements, or should I say directives, that seems corny at the outset, but all of us at some point struggle with knowing what to do at the right time or in specific situations.

For me, this phrase means to remember that I am a child of God. My identity as being one of His creations is what reminds me to take a breath, and consider that I need to step back and allow our unchanging God, the God who never gets frazzled or stressed out about what’s going on down here on Earth, to do His job of running the Universe. He is in charge, and when I stop to reflect on this, it allows me to rest. Remembering this truth allows our Creator to help us start over, and become renewed.

So the next time you’re facing a crisis in your life, a new season or finding yourself starting over in some way, let us remember that God is in all of that chaos. And he is ready to create order out of it. Through change. And all we need to do is just breathe a sigh of relief, and trust that He has a plan waiting for us around the corner.

 

 

All Scripture, unless otherwise noted, is taken from the New Living Translation.