The Chronicles of Load-Shedding . Harold Mawela

My friend, it is a truth we too often forget: we are not soldiers fighting for victory, but children standing on ground already conquered by our King. That cry from the cross, "It is finished," was not a whisper of defeat, but the universe-altering shout of a champion . Your calling is not to achieve what Christ has already accomplished, but to enforce this glorious reality in every corner of your life. 🛣️ A Walk in Akasia: The Battle in the Mundane Just the other day, I was walking the dusty streets of Akasia as the familiar frustration of loadshedding set in. The hum of generators filled the air, a modern South African soundtrack to our daily struggles. I felt a familiar anxiety creep in—worries about providing, about safety, about an uncertain future. It was in that moment the Holy Spirit whispered, "You are acting like a victim trying to survive a siege, when you are, in fact, a viceroy appointed to administer a conquered kingdom." I was like the Israelites aft...

The Sermon of Your Silence: When Actions Preach Louder Than Words The Unspoken Sermon The elderly woman in Mamelodi sits on an upturned crate, her gnarled hands shelling peas into a plastic bowl. She has never stood behind a pulpit or written a theological treatise. Yet, every morning at dawn, she places a second crate outside her door for the young man from down the dirt road who lost his parents to the great sickness. She never speaks of this. But when he passes, he does not see a old woman shelling peas—he sees a living parable of God's persistent care, a tangible expression that he has not been forgotten by heaven or earth. This is the sermon that needs no microphone. This past week, as our nation grappled with the sobering reports of nearly 1,000 women raped and 137 murdered in a single quarter , and as our political discourse often echoes with division, a profound question has haunted my quiet moments: If my life were stripped of all religious jargon, all Christian clichés, a...

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let me speak to you from my home here in Akasia, in the northern stretches of this city of Tshwane, a place built on old agricultural holdings, now buzzing with life . I want to talk about a poison many of us drink, a prison many of us inhabit. I want to talk about the costly, liberating war of forgiveness. The Prison We Inhabit Just the other day, I was driving through the rolling hills of Amandasig, with the Magaliesberg standing firm in the distance . Yet, the beauty outside my window was a stark contrast to the turmoil I felt inside. I was wrestling with a deep hurt, a wound inflicted by someone I trusted. The familiar, bitter taste of resentment was on my tongue. I was, as the saying goes, drinking a poison, hoping the other person would die . My soul felt like that mini-bus taxi I read about, the one that tragically plunged down an embankment in KwaZulu-Natal . My thoughts were crashing, my peace was shattered. I had become the prisoner, lo...

The Teaspoon and the Ocean: A South African Lesson in Sacred Obedience Here in Akasia, the summer sun bakes the earth to a brittle terracotta. From my window, I watch a neighbour trying to water his vast garden with a single, leaking hose. He runs frantically from one wilting petunia to the next, a picture of frantic exhaustion. It’s a futile fight against the immense need. And I see myself in him. I see all of us in him. How often have you stood before the ocean of problems in your life, in our nation, and felt the crushing weight of your own teaspoon? The need is too vast. The waves of crisis—load-shedding that plunges our homes into darkness, the relentless news of gender-based violence that shatters our communities, the deep poverty that leaves 23 percent of our children in severe food poverty —these are not mere puddles. They are a roaring sea. And the Lord whispers to my spirit, “Harold, you are trying to drain the ocean with a teaspoon.” The Tyranny of the Telescope We operate i...

  The Unseen Altar: Where God Forges Spiritual Depth in an Age of Instant Glory The Night the Lights Went Out The familiar, dreaded silence fell first. The hum of the refrigerator ceased mid-cycle. The bright screen of my phone, filled with the curated highlights of a dozen ministries, went black. Load-shedding had come to Akasia again. In the sudden, thick darkness, I fumbled for a candle. As the small flame took hold, it didn't just illuminate the room; it illuminated a truth. We spend so much energy trying to stay visible in the grid, terrified of the dark, when God so often uses the dark to show us the only light that truly matters. This is the tension we modern South Africans, and indeed all modern believers, must navigate. We live in a world that screams, "Your value is your visibility!" Social media metrics, church attendance numbers, and public influence are the new currencies of success. Yet, into this noise, the quiet, unwavering voice of Scripture speaks a coun...

My friend, if you have ever scrolled through your social media feed and felt a pang of inadequacy, as if your entire life is a behind-the-scenes blooper reel compared to everyone else’s award-winning highlight film, then this word is for you. I write to you from my own context, here in Akasia, where the vibrant, sometimes chaotic, rhythm of South African life provides the backdrop for my own walk of faith. 📜 The Ancient Race in a Modern World The Apostle Paul, a man who knew a thing or two about hardship, once used an image his readers would instantly understand: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24). In our modern South African context, we have twisted this. We think the prize is for the one with the most Instagrammable victory, the fastest start, or the loudest cheer squad. We have forgotten that the race is not against the person in the lane beside us; it is against the lies of t...

Seeing in the Dark: The Unseen War for Your Perspective My house went dark last night. Not just a flicker, but a deep, load-shedding Stage 6 darkness that swallows the hum of the fridge and the glow of the router light. My immediate world shrank to the circle of light from my phone torch. In that small pool of light, I could see my frustration, the clock ticking away the precious minutes of productivity, the palpable anxiety about the food spoiling in the freezer. This, right here, felt like my entire reality: limited, frustrating, and uncertain. But then, I did something simple. I walked to the window and pulled back the curtain. And there, stretched across the Akasia sky, was a breathtaking canopy of stars, sharper and more brilliant than I had seen in months. The very darkness that had blinded me inside had unveiled a majestic glory outside that was always there, but which the city lights normally obscured. My friends, are you not weary of living by the dim, flickering torchlight of...

My knuckles were white on the steering wheel. The digital clock glowed 11:37 PM. Before me, the N1 highway, usually a throbbing artery of light and life, was swallowed by a profound blackness. Load-shedding had not just dimmed the lights; it had erased the world. Beyond the frail, flickering reach of my headlights was a void. I knew the road was there—I could feel its rumble—but I couldn’t see fifty meters ahead. My destination, my home in Akasia, felt a million miles away. Every muscle was tense, my mind racing with fears of potholes the size of craters, of stray cattle, of other vehicles piloted by equally terrified drivers. I was, for all practical purposes, lost in the familiar. And in that claustrophobic cockpit of anxiety, the still, small voice of the Spirit whispered a truth that cut through the panic: You are not lost; you are being led. Friends, how many of us are driving through a load-shedded season of life? The economic potholes are deep, the social fabric feels frayed, an...

  The alarm screams into the 4 AM stillness of my Akasia home. The winter cold in Pretoria has a bite to it, seeping through the window frames. My body, a temple still under renovation, groans in protest. The warmth of the blankets is a siren song, a seductive whisper to trade the potential of the dawn for a few more stolen moments of sleep. In that moment, a war is waged. Not with swords and shields, but with choices. And I have come to learn that this daily battle hinges on a single, searing truth: the pain of discipline is far less than the pain of regret. This is not mere self-help jargon. This is a theological reality, a spiritual law as unyielding as the granite of the Magaliesberg. It is the principle of the cross applied to the commonplace. The Two Pains: A Tale of Two Roads Imagine, if you will, two roads diverging in the yellow wood of your life. One is the steep, stony path of discipline. The other is the smooth, descending slope of ease. We stand at the junction every s...

  The Unseen Architect: Why Your Faith is More Than a Feeling Scripture: "For we walk by faith, not by sight." – 2 Corinthians 5:7 The relentless knock-knock-knock of Eskom’s load-shedding is the unofficial soundtrack to our modern South African lives. As the lights in my Akasia home flicker and die, I’m left in a sudden, stifling silence, the hum of the fridge replaced by the frantic whir of my own thoughts. In the inky blackness, I can no longer see the room. I cannot see the chair I need to avoid, the book I was reading, or the path to the kitchen. Yet, I know the chair is there. I believe the book remains on the table. I must trust my mental map of this space to navigate it without breaking my shins. This, my friends, is the stark, beautiful, and often inconvenient picture of faith. Faith is not a fuzzy feeling you get during a stirring worship song. It is not a celestial lottery ticket you cash in for a blessed and burden-free life—a notion I must sound the alarm against...

My son’s school application was rejected this week. The email arrived during another bout of loadshedding, the screen’s blue glow a cold substitute for the light we’d lost. The familiar demon of "what if" and "if only" began its whispered assault. In that dim room, with the hum of the inverter a poor man’s symphony, I felt the universal temptation to strive, to scheme, to push a door that God Himself had clearly shut. This is the way of our world, isn't it? From the frantic scrolling on LinkedIn to the desperate networking at braais, we are taught that opportunity is a beast to be wrestled, a prize for the most persistent. We burn the midnight oil, we polish our CVs until they gleam, we contort ourselves to fit the mould of the moment. It is a theology of human exertion, and it is exhausting the soul of South Africa. But then, cutting through the spiritual noise of my own anxiety, comes the ancient, unwavering truth of Proverbs 18:16: "A man's gift make...

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3zmaPJ52l844ZzbNsHW2uP?si=HJgIOxloQEWiKGhQVZAzZg&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A00aDj3KbY5k63c31qBSpGj https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/good-is-the-enemy-of-great-stop-settling-for-a/id1506692775?i=1000736035842 The Divine Discontent: Why Your Restless Soul is a Holy Alarm My braai grid was hot, the boerewass sizzling, and the sky over Akasia was painted in shades of orange and purple. It was a perfect, good Friday evening. My friends were over, the laughter was easy, and for all intents and purposes, life was… acceptable. Yet, right there, amidst the aroma of grilling meat and the familiar chorus of crickets, a profound restlessness stirred in my spirit. It was a whisper, not of dissatisfaction with what I had, but of a deep, haunting conviction that I was made for more than this comfortable, good life. This, my friends, is what I’ve come to call the Divine Discontent. It is the holy ache, the sacred frustration that gnaws at you when you’ve settled...

 (A soft, rhythmic knocking echoes from the kitchen window—the familiar, frantic tap-tap-tapping of a night moth, drawn by the light within, beating itself against the glass in a desperate dance.) My friends, I write to you from the shadows. Not the deep, menacing shadows of the mountains, but the thin, persistent shade of obscurity. Here, in my Akasia home, with the hum of a struggling generator in the background—a soundtrack to our Eskom-induced frustrations—I feel a kinship with that moth. Not in its desperation, but in its seeming invisibility. Its entire world is that puddle of light on the windowpane, while inside, the main lights blaze, unseen by it. Is this not the quiet ache of our modern toil? You have poured yourself out. You stayed late at the office while the boss took the client to a celebratory lunch. You washed the dishes for the tenth time today, your hymn of service drowned out by the noise of a world that celebrates only the spectacular. You planted the seed in t...