Failure Isn't Final. Harold Mawela

The Approval Trap: Why Your Identity Cannot Afford to Be Democratically Determined Scripture: "The crowds that went ahead of him and those who followed shouted, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!'" — Matthew 21:9 I. A Story from Akasia Let me take you to a morning not so long ago. I was standing at the corner of Ben Schoeman and Sophie de Bruyn, waiting for a taxi to take me into the city. You know the scene—the hooting, the shouting, the chaotic symphony of survival that is our daily bread in Pretoria. A young man approached me. Clean suit, polished shoes, the confidence of someone who has just been promoted. He recognized me from a talk I gave at a men's conference in Mamelodi last year. "Bra Harold," he said, his voice carrying that particular vibration of someone who needs to offload something heavy, "I need to ask you something." We stood there, taxis swerving around us like iron fish in a concrete river, and he told me his story. Six months ag...

The Ministry of Angels: When Heaven’s Silent Warriors Work Your Comeback Scripture: “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?” (Hebrews 1:14) I. The Question That Changes Everything Let me tell you about the morning I sat in my house in Akasia, watching the dust settle on my dining table like a silent accusation. It was 4:47 AM. I had been awake since three, wrestling with the kind of fear that doesn't announce itself—it simply occupies your chest like an illegal squatter. My daughter’s school fees were three months behind. The car had begun making that sound mechanics charge you R2,000 just to diagnose. And somewhere in the distance, I heard the familiar sound of the Johannesburg-bound taxis hooting, ferrying people to jobs I no longer had. I sat there, a man with a theology degree and an empty fridge, and I asked the question that feels almost blasphemous when you’re hungry: “God, where are You?” The writer of Hebrews asks a different...

The Strategy of the Sacred Sword Scripture: “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword...” (Hebrews 4:12) I remember the afternoon I sat in my small flat in Akasia, watching the rain hammer against the windowpane. The electricity had been off for six hours—another round of loadshedding that Eskom had euphemistically called "planned maintenance." In the darkness, I found myself reaching not for my phone, not for the gas lamp, but for my Bible. The one my grandmother had pressed into my hands thirty years ago in Limpopo, its cover worn smooth by grief and joy alike. As I sat there, a text message buzzed through on the brief moment the towers flickered back to life. A friend from Mamelodi was struggling. His wife had left. His business had collapsed. His church had whispered that perhaps his faith was weak. He asked me one question: "Where is God when the sword falls?" I smiled in the darkness. Not because his pain was trivial—it was ...

 The Value of Vision Where Sight Becomes Substance Scripture: "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." (Proverbs 29:18) I was walking through the streets of Akasia last week—you know the place, where the dust of Pretoria North meets the determination of people who refuse to be forgotten. And as I stood at the intersection of Daan De Wet Nel Drive and the road that leads to the shopping centre, I watched the taxis hooting, the vendors selling their airtime and oranges, the mothers walking children to school. And a thought struck me like a stone from a sling: What do these people see when they look at tomorrow? You see, my friend, vision is not a business buzzword you learn at a workshop in Sandton. It is not a vision board you cut from magazines while listening to motivational speakers who charge five thousand rand for a weekend. Vision is the difference between surviving and thriving. Vision is what separates the man who digs in...

Title: The Midnight Ambush – Praise as Your Preemptive Strike By Harold Mawela, Akasia, Pretoria Let me take you to a place we all know too well in this country—the corner of Sefako Makgatho Drive and the R80 off-ramp in Akasia. You know that spot. It is where the pothole lives. It has been there for three rainy seasons, swallowing tires and testing the patience of saints and sinners alike. Every morning, I navigate my Toyota around it, cursing under my breath, accepting it as a permanent fixture of my geography. I had learned to drive around the problem. One morning, I saw something that rewired my theology. A man—just a man in a faded overall—walked into the middle of that intersection during peak traffic. He did not carry a wheelbarrow. He did not hold a sign demanding the ward councillor’s attention. He carried a shovel and a bag of asphalt. While the cars hooted and the taxis swerved, he began to fill the pothole. Right there, in the chaos, he preemptively struck against a hazard ...