HAROLD MAWELA

 ## The Unseen Arsenal: How Persistent Praise Guarantees Victory in South Africa’s Spiritual Battleground The morning air in Akasia hangs thick with the scent of bluegum trees and unresolved tension. I sit on my porch overlooking Tshwane’s northern sprawl, wrestling with headlines screaming about another week of load-shedding, political theatrics in Cape Town, and that viral video of Trump waving crosses at Ramaphosa as "proof" of white genocide . My neighbour Thabo shouts across the fence: *"Hau wena Harold, why you looking like a man who lost his last rand to FNB fees?"* We laugh, but his question pierces deeper than he knows. South Africa feels like Jehoshaphat’s Judah—surrounded by giants. ### The Johannesburg Ambush: When Lies Became Battlefields Last month’s diplomatic debacle between Ramaphosa and Trump wasn’t merely political theatre—it was spiritual warfare manifest in flesh. As Trump brandished fabricated images of "white farmer genocide," our pr...

 ## The Unseen Arsenal: When Silence Becomes Your Sword (From My Akasia Veranda) Greetings from Akasia, friends. Harold Mawela here, watching the Highveld sky bleed purple over the Tshwane skyline. You know this place – the relentless hum of generators battling Eskom’s latest “stage,” the distant thrum of taxis on Solomon Mahlangu Drive, the ever-present buzz on our phones… news flashes about coalition dramas in Pretoria’s Union Buildings, another service delivery protest flaring, the anxious chatter about the Rand. Noise. It’s our modern South African symphony, isn’t it? And sometimes, it feels like the very air crackles with a kind of… demonic static. I remember last Tuesday vividly. Load-shedding hit hard – Stage 6, no less. Darkness swallowed my street. My phone, that little pocket portal to global chaos and local grievances, blinked out. The neighbour’s generator sputtered and died. An unusual quiet descended, thick and heavy. In that sudden void, something remarkable happened...

  ## The Unlocked Ledger: When Forgiveness Becomes Your Sword (From My Pretoria Study) Greetings from Akasia, beloved. Harold Mawela here, the scent of last night’s braai still faint in the air, the familiar grumble of generators during Stage 6 load-shedding a stark reminder of the darkness we wrestle – both outside and within. That verse you shared? *“If you forgive others, your Father will forgive you”* (Matthew 6:14). It’s not gentle advice; it’s a divine transaction, a spiritual law as unyielding as the granite of our Voortrekker Monument. And let me tell you, holding onto unforgiveness? It’s like handing Eskom the keys to your substation and then complaining about the dark! I wrestled with this truth just last week, navigating the frost-bitten potholes of the R55 near Soshanguve. A bakkie, driven with more enthusiasm than wisdom, cut me off so sharply my coffee nearly baptised the dashboard. Anger, hot and immediate, surged. *"Uyagula wena?!"* (Are you sick?!) I muttered...

 **Title: "When the Lights Go Out: Truth’s Voltage in the Dark"**   I live in Akasia, Tshwane—a place where the hum of generators competes with the chorus of hadedas at dawn. Last week, Eskom plunged us into Stage 6 darkness again. My neighbor, Mama Dlamini, shouted over the fence, *“Haai, Harold! Even the devil’s laughing at these candles!”* I chuckled, but her words stuck. Isn’t that how doubt works? It flickers in the shadows of uncertainty, mocking our fragile light. But what if I told you the blackouts aren’t just Eskom’s failure—they’re a parable?   ### **The Grid of the Soul**   Pretoria’s streets mirror the soul’s terrain: potholes of regret, traffic jams of anxiety, and the occasional reckless taxi driver named Temptation. But our real crisis isn’t load-shedding—it’s *truth-shedding*. Just as Eskom fails to sustain power, many of us disconnect from the Divine Grid. We charge our phones but let our spirits brownout.   Paul wrote, *“Ta...

  **The Thunderstorm & The Key: A Pretoria Prophetic Perspective**   Greetings from Akasia, Tshwane—a place where the jacaranda trees whisper prayers and the Highveld thunderstorms shake the earth like a tambourine of heaven. Last week, as the skies cracked open above my neighborhood, I stood on my porch watching lightning split the darkness. It reminded me of a truth we’ve forgotten: *The name of Jesus isn’t a whisper—it’s a thunderclap*. Let me explain.   ### **The Night the Demons Fled My Living Room**   Two months ago, a young man named Sipho knocked on my door. His eyes were bloodshot, his hands trembling. “I can’t stop,” he confessed. Pornography had coiled around his mind like a python; alcohol drowned his nights. Sound familiar? South Africa’s addiction crisis isn’t just in taverns—it’s in our WhatsApp groups, our boardrooms, our silent shame. I shared with him Masakhane’s testimony , a man freed from identical chains after one encounter wi...

 **Title: The Anointing in Your Hands: How Your Daily Work Becomes a Battle Cry for Heaven**   From my balcony in Akasia, Pretoria, I watch the sun rise over the Magaliesberg—a golden blaze cutting through the winter chill. Below me, the hum of generators drones like a war chant. Eskom’s load-shedding has left us at Stage 6 again, but here’s the irony: even in the darkness, someone’s making light. Last week, my neighbor Thabo, an electrician turned entrepreneur, installed solar panels for a township creche. “No child should study by candlelight,” he said. When I asked why he does it, he grinned. “This is my worship.”   Thabo gets it. His tools are anointed.   You see, your vocation isn’t just a job; it’s a *weapon*. Nehemiah didn’t rebuild Jerusalem’s walls with a sermon—he carried a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other (Nehemiah 4:17). His construction site was a battlefield. So is yours. South Africa’s crises—rolling blackouts, 34% unemploymen...

 **Healing as Divine Inheritance: A South African Firestorm of Faith**   *By Harold Mawela*   I stood on the cracked pavement of Akasia’s Ext 12 last Tuesday, the winter air biting through my jacket, staring at a mural of Mandela peeling like old skin. A neighbor’s generator hummed—our third load-shedding slot that day—and I thought: *This is how the devil works. Darkness. Interruptions. Decay.* But then I remembered the SCOAN revival roaring through Johannesburg this month , where thousands are testifying of tumors vanishing and addicts breaking chains. If fire can fall there, why not here in Tshwane’s forgotten corners?   ### 1. **The Anatomy of a Miracle: Stripes, Sovereignty, and Load-Shedding**   “By His stripes” isn’t a poetic metaphor; it’s a legal decree. Imagine our national grid—Eskom’s failing towers, substations coughing smoke. Now picture Christ’s cross as a divine transformer: His wounds conducting resurrection voltage to every ...

 **"The Jacaranda’s Whisper: Binding Shadows, Loosing Light in the Soil of Tshwane"**   *By Harold Mawela*   ### **A Personal Encounter: When Heaven’s Keys Turned in Akasia**   Last winter, as the Jacaranda blooms carpeted Pretoria’s streets in purple, I stood in my backyard in Akasia, staring at a withered mango tree. Its branches clawed at the sky like skeletal fingers—a stark contrast to the vibrant chaos of Tshwane’s urban sprawl. My neighbor, Mama Dineo, had joked, “Even the soil here fights to breathe.” She wasn’t wrong. Beneath our feet lay layers of unresolved history: apartheid’s scars, xenophobic tensions simmering in Soshanguve, and the silent screams of women lost to gender-based violence .   One evening, as load-shedding plunged our street into darkness, I felt an unshakable heaviness—a spiritual stagnation thicker than the smog hanging over Marabastad. That night, I dreamt of Matthew 16:19 etched into the bark of that dying tree...

 **Title: "When the Lights Flicker: Breaking Generational Chains in the Shadow of Load Shedding"**   **Personal Story:**   Last Tuesday, as Eskom’s Stage 6 load shedding plunged my Akasia neighborhood into darkness, my seven-year-old daughter clutched my arm and asked, *“Papa, why do the lights always leave us?”* Her voice trembled—not just from fear of the dark, but from the weight of a question I’ve asked God myself. You see, our family knows about cycles. My father’s hands shook with a thirst no water could quench—whiskey bottles piled like unmarked graves in his backyard. His father? A miner who drowned his sorrows in shebeens after the earth swallowed his dreams. Now, my brother’s WhatsApp photo—a beer clenched in his fist at 10 a.m.—flashed on my phone, and I wondered: *When does a pattern become a prison?*   **Theological Framework:**   Exodus 20:5 warns of “iniquity visiting the third and fourth generation,” but Ezekiel 18:20 thunders...

 **Worship Warfare: How Praise Shatters Chains in the Shadows of Pretoria**   *By Harold Mawela*   ### **The Night the Lights Went Out (But the Song Remained)**   I stood on my balcony in Akasia Tshwane last week, watching the orange haze of load-shedding dim the city. Eskom’s failures had plunged Pretoria into darkness—again. But as the hum of generators faded, something else rose: the sound of singing. A neighbor two doors down, Mama Ndlovu, began belting *“Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika”* into the void. Soon, others joined. By the time the power returned, our street felt lighter, as though the collective praise had rewired more than just the grid.   This is the paradox of our nation: where infrastructure crumbles, *worship rebuilds*. South Africa’s crises—unemployment at 33%, gender-based violence rates that horrify the world , and political corruption scandals splashed across *News24*—are not merely social issues. They are battlegrounds where the...

 **Title: When the Night Whispers: Decoding Heaven’s Midnight Strategies**   I never paid much attention to dreams until the night Eskom plunged Akasia into darkness—again—and my restless mind plunged deeper. There I was, sweating under a mosquito net, irritated by the hum of a dying generator next door, when sleep finally dragged me under. In the dream, I stood at the intersection of Solomon and Kgosi Streets, our local spaza shop flickering like a faulty neon sign. A crowd gathered, but their faces were blurred, voices a cacophony of Zulu, Afrikaans, and Tsotsitaal. Then, a figure in white appeared, holding a lantern. “The enemy’s stealing your light,” he said, “but the blueprint to reclaim it is here.” He handed me a scroll—*Job 33:15* inked in crimson. I woke, heart racing, load shedding still raging… but the dream clung like velcro.   Friends, your *night* is a battleground.   ### **The Divine Spy Network**   Scripture says God uses drea...

 **Title: "The Armour of Light in the Valley of Shadows"**   **Personal Story:**   Last Tuesday, as the sun dipped behind the Magaliesberg, Eskom plunged Akasia into darkness—again. My generator sputtered, surrendering to the relentless load-shedding. In that dim silence, my phone buzzed: a friend’s voice, trembling. Her son had been robbed at a taxi rank in Soshanguve, a blade pressed to his throat. “They took his phone, Harold,” she wept. “But why does it feel like they took my hope?”   I sat in that shadowed-out living room, the hum of distant generators a dissonant choir. My Bible lay open to Ephesians 6. *“Put on the full armour…”* I’d read it a hundred times. But that night, the words flickered like candlelight, alive. I realized: we’re all navigating a nation where darkness isn’t just metaphorical. Load-shedding. Crime. Corruption. Yet, Paul’s ancient strategy isn’t for pews—it’s for pavements.   **The Armour, Reimagined:**  ...

**Title: When the Lights Go Out: A Journey from Darkness to Divine Voltage**   There’s a rhythm to life here in Akasia, Tshwane. You learn to dance between power cuts and potholes. Just last week, I stood in my kitchen, coffee half-brewed, when Eskom’s *load-shedding* plunged us into stage 6 darkness. My toddler giggled, thinking I’d invented a new game of flashlight tag. But as I fumbled for candles, I felt the Holy Spirit whisper: *“What if the blackouts *outside* are a mirror of the outages *inside*?”*   South Africa knows darkness. We’re a nation wrestling with rolling blackouts, water shortages, and the ghost of corruption that still haunts our corridors of power. But friends, let me tell you—the greatest crisis isn’t on our grids. It’s in our souls.   **The Circuit Breaker of Repentance**   Last month, I met a young man in Soshanguve whose home had been without electricity for 83 days. “I’ve memorized the smell of paraffin,” he joked, but hi...

 **Title: When the Lights Go Out: How Darkness Prepares Your Divine Platform**   *(A First-Person Journey Through Loadshedding and Spiritual Warfare in Akasia)*   Last Tuesday, Eskom plunged Akasia into darkness again. My laptop battery died mid-sentence. The fridge hummed into silence. Outside, the chorus of generators and frustrated shouts rose like a discordant hymn. I stumbled for a candle, muttering, *“Not tonight—I have deadlines!”* But as I sat there, flame flickering, the Holy Spirit whispered: *“You’re not just waiting for electricity. You’re rehearsing for revelation.”*   **Trials Are Tutors—Even in Tshwane**   Let me explain. South Africa knows darkness. We’ve mastered the art of surviving blackouts—literal and metaphorical. Loadshedding isn’t just about Eskom’s failures; it’s a prophetic classroom. Think about it: when the grid collapses, you’re forced to innovate. Candles replace bulbs. Gas stoves resurrect. Solar panels glint li...

**Title: *The Sacred Pause: How Divine Timing Unmasks the Enemy’s Rush Hour***   I live in Akasia, Tshwane—a place where potholes compete with traffic lights for dominance, and patience is not a virtue; it’s a survival skill. Last week, during yet another bout of load-shedding, I learned a lesson that rewired my soul. Let me tell you about it.   My kettle had just hissed to silence when the lights died. Again. No coffee. No Wi-Fi. Just me, a half-charged phone, and the hum of neighbors’ generators. Frustrated, I jumped into my car to find a café with electricity. *“I need caffeine now,”* I muttered, swerving around potholes on Zambesi Road. But at the first robot (traffic light, for non-South Africans), I froze. The light flickered—orange, red, dead. Chaos erupted. Taxis swarmed like bees, pedestrians dashed, and I sat there, gripping the wheel, realizing: *This is what impatience looks like*.   In that moment, Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes 3:1 thundered ...

 **Title: The Unseen Compass: When Surrender Becomes Your Supernatural Strategy**   **By Harold Mawela | Akasia, Tshwane**   ### **A Personal Prelude: The Night the Lights Went Out**   Last week, during another bout of load-shedding, I sat in the dark of my Akasia home, laptop battery dwindling, my frustration rising like the smoke from my neighbor’s braai. My deadline loomed, and my plans—like Eskom’s grid—were collapsing. Then, in the silence, a thought pierced the chaos: *What if this darkness isn’t a blockade but a classroom?*   I remembered the Hennops River, just 20 minutes north of us. Years ago, I kayaked there, convinced I could outmaneuver the rapids. Halfway through, the current flipped me. Submerged, I stopped fighting. The river carried me to calm waters. Surrender saved me. That night, load-shedding became my metaphor: *When human systems fail, divine strategies awaken* .   ### **The Chessboard of Heaven: Why Your Plan...

Last Tuesday, Eskom’s load shedding hit Akasia like a blunt axe. Darkness swallowed my street, but worse—my spirit felt dim. I fumbled for candles, muttering about “Stage 6 faith.” Then my neighbor, Mama Dlamini, shouted from her porch: *“Ha re tshwenyehwe ke leswiswi—let’s shine!”* (“Don’t let darkness trouble us—let’s shine!”). She dragged out a gas grill, lit it, and started roasting mealies. Soon, half the street gathered, swapping stories of surviving blackouts, unemployment, and a decade of “Ramaphoria” fading.   That night, I realized: **Testimony is fire in the Karoo of the soul.**   **2. The Algebra of Heaven: Blood + Testimony = Victory**   Revelation 12:11 isn’t poetry—it’s algebra. *Blood* (Christ’s finished work) + *Testimony* (our lived proof) = Satan’s defeat. But we’ve privatized victory. We post selfies, not salvation. We mute our miracles, fearing judgment—“What if my healing isn’t *dank* enough?”   Let me confront you: **Silence...