“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.”
Context: New creation language: the old is described as gone, not merely improved.
Bible Verses for Starting Over
Starting again after failure, loss or a decision that did not work is a common biblical story. Peter, David and Israel all get second chapters.
These passages are about mercy and about the slow, unglamorous work of rebuilding.
Compiled and reviewed by the Verse & Light editorial team · last reviewed 2026-09-20 · Scripture quoted from the World English Bible
The passages
““Don’t remember the former things, and don’t consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don’t you know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.”
Context: A road in the wilderness — a beginning in the least promising place.
“Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do: forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Context: Forgetting what is behind, written by a man with a violent past he never hid.
“It is because of the LORD’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don’t fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.”
Context: Mercy supplied daily, which is the pace most restarts actually need.
“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar, my great army, which I sent among you.”
Context: A promise to restore the years the locusts ate, spoken after ruin, not instead of it.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.”
Context: David's prayer for a clean heart after serious failure.
Questions to sit with
- What do you need to forgive yourself for before you begin?
- What will you do differently this time?
- What is the first small, concrete step?
A prayer
Original devotional writing by the Verse & Light editorial team — not part of the Bible text
God, I am beginning again. Give me mercy for what is behind and steadiness for what is ahead. Amen.
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