Failure Isn't Final. Harold Mawela

You Are What You Choose After By Harold Mawela, Akasia, Pretoria Scripture: "Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead" — Philippians 3:13 A Personal Beginning: The Taxi Rank Morning Let me take you to a morning I will never forget. It was a cold July morning in 2023, and I stood at the corner of Jabavu and Kgosi Mampuru streets in Pretoria, waiting for a taxi to take me to a meeting in Soshanguve. The rank was chaos — vendors shouting, taxis hooting, hawkers selling everything from socks to sim cards. As I squeezed into the back of a beat-up Toyota Quantum, a young man stumbled in beside me, eyes bloodshot, shoulders slumped. He smelled of cheap alcohol and deeper despair. "Umnumzana," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I was released from Kgosi Mampuru prison yesterday. Three years for a crime I committed when I was drunk. My wife left me. My children don't know me. My mother won't open the door. What am I?" I looked at...

 The Funeral of Your Complaints Scripture: "Do all things without grumbling or disputing." (Philippians 2:14) I buried a complaint last Tuesday. Not a metaphorical burial, but a funeral. I stood at the graveside of my own grumbling, lowered the casket of my excuses, and watched the soil of God's silence cover it completely. Thoko, a domestic worker from Soshanguve, taught me the funeral. She lives in a shack without windows, yet her joy is a jacaranda in bloom purple and impossible against the dust. One afternoon, as load-shedding plunged Akasia into stage 6 darkness, I heard her humming. Not complaining about Eskom, not grumbling about politicians, not murmuring about the potholes that swallow our tyres whole. "The funeral," she said, "is when you decide that your mouth will no longer rehearse your misery." Beloved, let us define our terms clearly. Complaining is the verbal rehearsal of circumstances you refuse to change. Disputing is the mental argum...

Title: The Mirror of Their Madness Scripture: “They will treat you this way because they do not know the One who sent me.” (John 15:21) My neighbour, Mr. Dlamini, lost his job last month. Not because his work was poor — he was the best boilermaker in the Hammanskraal industrial park but because the factory closed. Load‑shedding had strangled production, and the owner sold the equipment to a buyer in Durban. Mr. Dlamini came to my gate at 6 a.m., his eyes red from tears he would not admit. “Pastor,” he whispered, “my wife looks at me now like I am the problem.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Brother, her gaze is a cracked mirror. It shows her fear, not your failure.” Beloved, I have stood in that painful place too many times. A few years ago, a brother in a Bible study I helped lead accused me of “trying to steal the glory” because I dared to preach on the cost of discipleship. He stopped greeting me in the aisle. He whispered to others that I was “too political.” I went home that nigh...

 The Command of Your Sail Scripture: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” (Mark 4:41) Let me tell you about the Wednesday the lights went out and my faith nearly went with them. It was three weeks ago here in Akasia. Eskom had blessed us with Stage 6 load-shedding again. There I sat, candle flickering on my kitchen table, cellphone battery dying, and the news on my radio telling me that our beloved South African rand was taking another beating. My mind began its old, familiar dance: How will you pay the school fees? What about the car repair? Your mother’s hypertension medicine—did you budget for the price increase? I caught myself begging. Not praying begging. Whimpering at the storm like a man drowning in ankle-deep water. Then the Holy Spirit—bless His relentless kindness whispered: Stop begging the waves for mercy. I slept in your storm. Now speak to it. Define Your Terms, Lest You Drown in Confusion Let us be precise, because confusion is the devil's fa...

 The Cage of Comfort Scripture: "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." (Luke 5:4) My dear brother, my dear sister—let me tell you something this morning from my study window here in Akasia, where the Pretoria sun is rising over the purple jacarandas. I see my neighbour, Mr. Ndlovu, backing out his BMW for the fifth time this week. Nice car. Steady salary at the Department of Home Affairs. No drama. And I whisper to myself: Blessing has become a blanket, and that blanket has become a bed. And a bed, beloved, is where men fall asleep. The Paradox of Prosperity Let us define our terms clearly. Comfort is not sin. I must say this plainly, lest the zealots among you throw away your mattresses. Comfort—the legitimate rest, the fruit of honest labour, the provision of a loving God—is a gift. Did not Solomon say, "There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil" (Ecclesiastes 2:24)? Yes, he did. B...

The Sound of Sacred Silence: A Theology for Noisy Times Scripture: “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) By Harold Mawela Akasia, Pretoria Part One: The Architecture of Absence Let me tell you about a Tuesday that nearly broke me. It was last year, in this very city of Pretoria. The rains had failed again—dimbaza, we call it in the old tongue—and the dust from the informal settlements across the Apies River blew into my chest like the ashes of forgotten promises. I sat on my stoep in Akasia, the sky the colour of a rusted roof, and I listened. Nothing. Not the comforting hum of loadshedding that silence I know too well. Not the distant toyi-toyi from a protest in the CBD. Not even the rogue taxi hooting its three-note hymn to impatience. Just silence. The kind of quiet that presses against your eardrums like a thumb on a bruise. I had been praying. For weeks. Maybe months. For my nephew, Thabo, who had graduated with honours from TUT but could not find work because the econ...