FAITH: New beginnings are not failure

There is an unsaid feeling of shame that often comes with starting over. 

We do not always say it out loud, but we feel it. We wonder if a new beginning means we misread the first beginning. We wonder if changing direction means we wasted time, disappointed people, or failed at something we were once certain about. 

But I do not believe every ending is a failure. Sometimes an ending is simply an invitation. Sometimes it is wisdom finally speaking loudly enough for us to hear. Sometimes it is grace, not punishment. 

In the Bible, the prophet Isaiah writes, “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?” That question matters. Not just, “Can we experience something new?” but “Will we recognize it when it comes?” 

Because new things rarely arrive neatly. They often come through loss, transition, exhaustion, grief, changed plans, hard conversations, or doors that no longer open the way they once did. And when that happens, it is easy to confuse discomfort with defeat. 

But discomfort is not always a sign that we are doing something wrong. Sometimes discomfort is what growth feels like before we have language for it. 

Frederick Buechner once wrote, “The place you are called to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” I have always loved that line, because it does not treat calling as something frozen in time. It suggests that calling is alive. It can deepen. It can shift. It can mature as we do. 

The thing that once fit your life perfectly may not fit forever. That does not mean it was false. It may mean it served its season. 

The book of Ecclesiastes reminds us that “to every thing there is a season.” There is a time to plant and a time to pull up what has been planted. A time to build and a time to heal. A time to hold on and a time to release. Wisdom is not only knowing what to begin. It is also knowing when a season has done its holy work. 

That is a hard truth, especially for those of us who were raised to believe that faithfulness always looks constant. Sometimes it does. But sometimes faithfulness looks like telling the truth, laying something down, and stepping toward the next right thing with humility.

Parker Palmer put it beautifully: “Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” That kind of listening takes courage. It requires us to stop performing certainty long enough to be honest. 

And honesty is not failure. 

Changing careers is not failure. Ending a chapter is not failure. Leaving a role, a relationship, a dream, or an old version of yourself is not automatically failure. Sometimes it is the most faithful thing you can do. 

Walter Brueggemann wrote that “hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion.” I think that applies here. The majority opinion may say that starting over means you lost. But hope tells a different story. Hope says there may still be life beneath the soil. Hope says the present moment is not the final word. Hope says beginnings can be born out of endings. 

In my own life, I have found that sacred grace is often less like a lightning bolt and more like a hand on the shoulder, gently saying, “There is still more to be done ahead.” 

Whether you call that God, grace, wisdom, providence, or simply the quiet courage to keep going, I think we all need to remember this: new beginnings are not evidence that we failed. They are evidence that we are still becoming. 

And becoming is holy work.

Adam Johnson is a strategy consultant and ordained minister with two decades of experience in nonprofit leadership nationwide, currently the CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Jackson TN. He holds advanced degrees in nonprofit organization from the University of Memphis. Adam lives in Jackson with his wife, Kayla, and their daughter Josephine.