Keion Henderson - When Failure Becomes the Foundation to Success

I’d like to speak to you on the subject of when failure becomes the foundation of success. I know it’s kind of a weird topic; it seems as if it contradicts itself. How could failure help you succeed? You see, as a society, we often view failure as something entirely negative. No one wants to fail; no one likes to fail. We don’t want to associate ourselves with people who have failed, and that’s why many friendships suffer. Many friendships go through a period of separation because people have a tendency to want to be around you only when you’re succeeding. But the moment things go wrong, the moment you begin to fail, that’s when they bail out. We dismiss the idea of failure as a foundation for success as something that offers no potential. How could that open the door to success? There’s no power in that: if I failed, I failed; that’s it, the end of the road. I don’t even need to try again.

But the truth is, there are many people, including me, who will tell you that failure can be the foundation that pushes you to dream bigger and to increase your faith for greater things. Sometimes it is in failing that you learn to do things better, that you learn to trust God even more, and that you learn to do things over again until you get it right. Right now, many of you are struggling, and you’re having a difficult time handling the failures of your life. You’re sitting in this room, you’re streaming, and literally, you are suffering—you are hurting—because when you look back over your life, you’ve faced a lot of failures. Perhaps you have even failed in your spiritual journey. Some of you are struggling in that journey because somehow you know that the things you’re doing are contrary to the teachings of scripture, so there’s a war every weekend when you go to church.

You feel the guilt of, «I know what I did this week is contrary to how I should live as a believer.» The enemy keeps talking to you, condemning you, and making you feel unworthy. Unfortunately, some people give in to that lie and therefore quit going to church because they think, «I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I don’t want to go to church and claim I’m a Christian when I’m not living up to scripture.» That doesn’t mean that I’m saying you ought to continue doing things that are contrary to scripture and ignore it while coming to church as if nothing is wrong. But listen to me, the lie of the enemy is to tell you that the only way or posture you should take when coming to church is when you’re always righteous, always right, always getting it right. But that is a lie because the church is a spiritual hospital. Who goes to the emergency room and hears, «Sorry, I can’t treat you; you’re too sick»? Think about it: when you go to the emergency room, no matter your condition, their job is to take care of you. The church is a spiritual hospital that has no right to turn away patients who come in, no matter how hurt they are, how broken they are, or how sick they are. Our job is to offer them up to the Chief Physician, and His name is Jesus. Come on, somebody ought to give Him praise right there.

So the enemy of your soul has convinced you to walk away from your faith because you are not a good example of a believer. Don’t go to church; don’t serve God. You failed; you did all these things five years ago, you did that last night. Don’t even think about praying. But I’m here today to tell you and encourage you to muster up the strength and put your faith in the plans that God has for you. Yes, He has big plans for your life, and when you do that, I promise you can have a year where you walk in the fullness of God and become, watch this, the best version of yourself. You should be tired by now of walking around on this planet, living on average. You are better than you think you are. It’s time to understand your worth; it’s time to understand the power that’s in you; it’s time to understand your potential.

I am here today to talk to each and every one of you, whether you are in business—maybe you’re currently dealing with a failing business—or if you’ve dreamt of doing things in your life only to find out they haven’t come to pass. Perhaps all of you, or most of you, have had some bad experiences in your love lives. You have suffered a brutal blow in your love life. In this room, a lot of us are dealing with people we call our exes—people who were once with us and broke us. Don’t be quiet up in this Presbyterian church, looking at me as if I’m talking to myself. Come on, has anybody ever been broken by somebody? Come on, talk to me here now! Perhaps you have concluded, «I don’t ever want to love again; I don’t ever want to trust anybody anymore because I got my heart broken.» Perhaps you’re in a marriage in which you’ve spent thousands of dollars, investing your time and resources, only to see it fail. But I’m here today to tell you, yes, you better believe this: God is not through with you. God is not through with you.