Skip to main content

**Your Pain Prepares Purpose**


 **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 like armor on rooftops. What if your *spiritual* loadshedding—betrayals, unemployment, grief—is God’s way of rewiring you for greater voltage?  

David wrote Psalm 57 in a cave, hiding from Saul. No Wi-Fi, no comfort. Just damp walls and desperation. Yet there, he composed lyrics we still sing: *“Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn”* (Psalm 57:8). Caves become studios. Darkness births anthems.  

**Scars Sanctify Stories: The Theology of “Impossible”**  

Last month, a young man in Soshanguve turned his spaza shop into a community hub during 12-hour blackouts. No power? No problem. He strung up paraffin lamps, hosted Bible studies, and fed neighbors with a gas-powered potjie pot. His crisis became a crossroads. Now, local pastors call him *“the Lightboy.”*  

Your pain is a parable waiting to be preached. The enemy wants you bitter over the blackout; God wants you building a bonfire. When my cousin Thabo lost his job at a Pretoria factory, he spent nights praying in his Ford Figo. Today, he runs a carwash empire employing 15 others. *“Unemployment was my Joseph pit,”* he laughs. *“Now I’m the CEO of rinse cycles.”*  

**Spiritual Eskom: Why Your Breakthrough Demands Loadshedding**  

Modern South Africa mirrors ancient spiritual battles. We’re election-obsessed, yet Proverbs 29:2 warns, *“When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice.”* Scandals dominate headlines—politicians swapping accountability like FIFA cards. But hear me: corruption cannot outpower consecration.  

I’ve learned this through my own “Akasia altar.” Three years ago, anxiety attacks pinned me to my bathroom floor. I’d gasp, *“God, I’m useless!”* Yet in that weakness, He taught me warfare. Each panic attack became a prayer session. Now I mentor teens in mental health battles. My breakdown birthed a bridge.  

**The Dawn Doctrine: How to Hack Heaven’s Timing**  

Joy comes in the morning—but first, you must endure the night shift. Ancient watchmen guarded cities from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m., the “belly of the night.” They knew danger prowled, but also that dawn was inevitable.  

Are you guarding your promise in the dark? I’ll confess: I hated waking up for 4 a.m. prayers… until I noticed a pattern. My clearest visions came during those groggy hours. One morning, half-awake, I felt led to donate my spare TV to a shelter. Turns out, a pastor there needed it to stream sermons. Coincidence? No. Divine algorithms.  

**Practical Prophecy: Becoming a Loadshedding Lightbearer**  

1. **Audit Your Darkness**: What keeps you awake? Debts? Loneliness? Map it. Moses’ staff only split the Red Sea after he acknowledged the dead-end.  

2. **Repurpose the Pain**: That friend who ghosted you? Pray for her daily. Turn rejection into intercession.  

3. **Plug Into Alternate Power Sources**: Join a small group. Fast TikTok for a week. Replace complaint with worship.  

**Closing Charge: Your Pain is a Platform**  

Fellow South African, our nation groans. Crime stats chill. Unemployment chokes. Yet, I prophesy: the same resilience that gets us through Stage 6 loadshedding will ignite revival. Your scars are not souvenirs—they’re launchpads.  

So tonight, when the lights die again, light a candle. Pray. Then text that friend who’s struggling. Your darkest hour is God’s brightest studio.  

**Prayer**:  

Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank You for Akasia’s power cuts. For every silent night, every delayed dream—use it to amplify Your glory. Make me a lightboy in Pretoria’s shadows. Turn my loadshedding into a lighthouse. Amen.  

**Harold Mawela** is a Pretoria-based writer and mentor who finds God in traffic jams and WhatsApp devotionals. His rooftop solar panels charge his laptop, but his hope is wired to eternity.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Peace in Mystery

The Pressure of Knowing: When the Finite Mind Meets the Infinite God My friends, from my home in Akasia, north of Pretoria, I see the night sky—a tapestry of stars flung across the void, a silent proclamation of a majesty that defies our comprehension. My mind, this small vessel of thoughts and fears, tries to grasp it. It tries to grasp everything. The rising price of maize meal. The scan of a medical report. The silent dread when a child is late coming home. We live in an age that worships at the altar of knowledge. We carry supercomputers in our pockets that promise every answer, yet our national soul feels more fractured, more anxious, than ever. We are a generation under immense pressure to figure it all out—the economy, the future, the purpose, the pain. We believe if we can just understand the “why,” we can control the outcome. We believe our peace is on the other side of comprehension. But I tell you today: this pressure is a burden God never asked you to carry. The ant underst...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Law of the Open Hand

The Law of the Open Hand: From Scarcity to Divine Supply in a Clenched-Fist World By Harold Mawela From my study in Akasia, Pretoria, I look out at a nation holding its breath. We live in the perpetual tension between promise and provision, between what is pledged from podiums and what is present in our pantries. The headlines scream of crises competing for our fragmented attention, while our hearts whisper the ancient, agonizing question: “Will there be enough?” In this climate, a primal instinct takes hold: the clench. We clench our fists around our finances, our futures, our fragile sense of security. Yet, I come to you today with a counter-intuitive, kingdom truth, a law as immutable as gravity but activated by faith: The Law of the Open Hand. The Parable of the Tightened Fist: A Story from Soshanguve Let me tell you a story. Not from a dusty theological text, but from the sun-baked streets of Soshanguve. I visited a community kitchen run by a widow, Gogo Mthembu. Her pension was a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Faithful in the Forgotten

  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...
Post a Comment
Read more