You Are Not Bread: The Grace of Being Versus The Grind of Doing
Akasia, Pretoria — The Morning the Spar Queue Became My Pulpit
Brothers and sisters, let me tell you about last Thursday.
There I was, standing in the interminable queue at the Karenpark Spar—that peculiar South African purgatory where time goes to die between the checkouts and the braai pack section. The woman ahead of me, designer handbag gleaming like fool's gold, was on her Bluetooth earpiece, voice dripping with the particular anxiety of Pretoria's aspirational class.
"No, no, no—tell him I need the tender documents by three! If we don't secure this contract, the board will think I'm failing. I must deliver. I must prove myself. I must..."
Her voice faded, but the word hung in the air like municipal smog over the Highveld. Must. Must. Must.
I wanted to tap her shoulder. I wanted to whisper what Jesus thundered to the bread-crazed crowd by Galilee: “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the sign, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill” (John 6:26).
But the queue moved. She paid. She vanished into the winter sun, chased by the whip of her own performance.
And I stood there, clutching my milk and my maize meal, suddenly aware that I was looking at my own reflection in the glass of the frozen food section.
I. The Great Confusion: When We Mistake the Pantry for the Person
Let us define our terms with the precision this crisis demands.
Affection is not attendance. Many will stand near your fire, but few will stay for your storm. The crowd celebrated the Carpenter but coveted the Caterer. They wanted His hands, not His heart. They wanted the multiplication of fish, not the fellowship of the Father. They wanted bread that perishes, not the Bread of Life who is.
This is not merely a first-century Galilean problem, beloved. This is a 2026 Akasia problem. This is a Pretoria problem. This is a South African epidemic dressed in Sunday clothes.
I see it in the WhatsApp groups that ping with prayer requests but fall silent when the funeral needs transport. I see it in the churches that track attendance spikes during imvuselelo (revival) weeks but cannot name five members in actual prison visitation. I see it in the ministry WhatsApp statuses: "Prophetic Encounter Tonight! Bring R200 seed for your breakthrough!"—as though grace were a lay-by plan at Jet Stores.
We have, forgive me, syncretised the Saviour with the system. We have blended Calvary with capitalism until the cross becomes a corporate logo and the Eucharist becomes a networking event.
The Scripture declares unequivocally: Jesus faced bread-seekers and still walked to Calvary.
He did not redefine His identity based on consumer demand. He did not rebrand His mission to retain the crowd. He did not water down the offence of the gospel to keep the offerings flowing.
And neither must you.
II. The Akasia Parable: The Stokvel That Forgot Its Purpose
Picture this, if you will.
In 2019, a group of women in Soshanguve formed a burial society stokvel. Each month, they contributed. Each month, they gathered. The fellowship was warm, the maas was cold, and the laughter echoed through the dusty streets.
But then something shifted. The monthly meetings became about the amount contributed, not the community constituted. Women who could not pay were whispered about. Those who brought less were seated at the back. The stokvel that began as mutual aid became a meritocracy of mourners.
By 2023, the original members had scattered. The money was there. The bread was there. But the body was gone.
My friends, is this not the tragedy of modern South African Christianity? We have abundance of attendance but anaemia of affection. We have full auditoriums and empty upper rooms. We have tithe records that would impress an auditor but prayer meetings that wouldn't fill a minibus taxi.
We have mistaken the pantry for the person. We have come for the loaves and missed the Lord of the loaves.
III. The Philosophical Precision: A Syllogism for the Starved Soul
Let us, for a moment, borrow the tools of reason to excavate the treasure of grace.
Major Premise: A human being's fundamental worth is determined by the value their Creator assigns them, not by the utility they provide to consumers.
Minor Premise: The Creator assigned human worth not at the point of production, but at the point of creation—declaring us very good before we lifted a single finger (Genesis 1:31).
Conclusion: Therefore, your worth precedes your output. Your identity precedes your industry. You are a person, not a product.
A Common Objection arises—and I have felt its sting in my own Akasia study, wrestling with the silence of unanswered prayers and overlooked labour: "But Pastor, I must be useful. The church needs my service. The community needs my contribution. My family needs my provision. To stop performing is to become parasitic."
This objection, however sincere, fails because it confuses function with foundation.
A tree is not valuable because it bears fruit. It bears fruit because it is valuable—rooted in nutrient-rich soil, drawing from hidden springs, alive by the Creator's design. The fruit is evidence of life, not the currency of worth.
Utility is a gift you offer. Identity is a gift you receive. You do not negotiate your value at the bargaining table of human approval. You discover it in the gaze of a God who called you by name before you could earn a single commendation.
IV. The War of Two Gazes: Clients Versus Communers
Here is the battlefield, saints. Draw your weapon—which is the Sword of the Spirit, not a self-help book.
There are two kinds of people who gather around the fire of your life.
Clients come for consumption. They assess your warmth, measure your output, calculate your usefulness. When the fire dims, they leave. When the storm rises, they scatter. When your bread basket empties, they search for another baker. Clients are not evil; they are simply operating in the economy of exchange. But you were not created for their economy.
Disciples come for communion. They do not count your loaves; they contemplate your Lord. They stay in the storm not because you are impressive, but because He is present. They sit with you in the ash heap of Job's lament and do not demand a seven-point prosperity sermon.
The terrifying, liberating truth is this: You cannot turn clients into disciples by performing better. You can only exhaust yourself on the altar of their expectations while your own soul suffers load-shedding of the deepest kind.
Jesus knew this. He watched the five thousand dwindle to the twelve. He watched the twelve scatter to the shadows. And still, He walked to Golgotha—not as a rejected leader, but as a faithful Son.
V. A Personal Confession: My Spar Queue Conversion
I must be honest with you, which is the least I owe as a brother.
Three years ago, I nearly resigned from ministry. Not because of scandal or heresy or moral failure. Because of exhaustion. Because I had mistaken my call for a contract. Because I had begun to believe that my value before God fluctuated with my output for God.
I was checking my phone obsessively after services. How many views on the livestream? How many likes on the sermon clip? How many "Amen, pastor!" comments? I was measuring the anointing by analytics, calculating the Spirit's presence by engagement metrics.
One Tuesday, during Stage 6 load-shedding, I sat in my dark Akasia lounge, laptop battery draining, soul already empty. I opened my Bible—not to prepare a sermon, but to find a father. And the Spirit led me, gently, to John 6.
"You are looking for me, not because you saw the sign, but because you ate the loaves."
And I heard Him whisper to my heart: "Harold, you have been looking for them. Not because you saw Me in their faces, but because you ate their approval. You have been performing for a crowd that was never your audience."
I wept. Not the controlled, dignified tears of a pastoral prayer. The heaving, ugly sobs of a prodigal son who finally remembers his father's house.
VI. The South African Context: Why This Word Is For Such a Time As This
We live in a nation addicted to the spectacular.
Our political landscape groans under the weight of leaders who confuse performance with governance. Our entertainment industry celebrates the visible, the viral, the verified. Our churches—forgive me, Lord—often amplify this error, measuring revival by the decibel level of praise and worship rather than the depth of discipleship.
We have 85.3% of South Africans identifying as Christian . And yet, gender-based violence stalks our townships. Corruption bleeds our municipalities dry. The gap between Sandton and Soweto yawns like the chasm between Dives and Lazarus.
Why? Because we have produced consumers of religious goods, not disciples of the Crucified King. We have handed out bread without proclaiming the Bread of Life. We have grown churches and lost souls.
This is the prophetic confrontation: You cannot heal a nation with bread alone. You need the Word made flesh, dwelling among us, full of grace and truth. And that Word does not come to be consumed. He comes to be followed.
VII. The Logical Conclusion: Therefore, Reason Itself Compels Us
Therefore, reason itself, illuminated by Scripture and confirmed in the deepest, most honest ache of your soul, compels us to acknowledge this liberating law:
You will never possess peace until you stop pursuing performance as the price of belonging.
You are not bread. You are not a commodity. You are not a spiritual service provider whose market value fluctuates with client satisfaction.
You are a child of God. You are an heir with Christ. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit—not a construction project whose worth is assessed upon completion, but a sanctuary consecrated before the first stone was laid.
The world will always want your product. Only God wants you.
VIII. The Actionable Wisdom: Three Daily Declarations to Anchor the Anchored Mind
1. Declare over your morning coffee: "Before I did anything today, God loved me. My worth is a gift, not a goal."
2. Declare over your workplace anxiety: "I work unto the Lord, not for human applause. My excellence is worship, not resume-building."
3. Declare over your evening exhaustion: "I am not bread to be consumed. I am a child to be cherished. My Father does not love me because I am useful. He loves me because I am His."
IX. The Final Picture: Mama Dlamini's Generator
Let me leave you with this image, etched into my Akasia memory.
Mama Dlamini, my seventy-three-year-old neighbour, lost her husband to the 2021 riots. He was stabbed defending a spaza shop that wasn't even his. She has every human reason to be bitter, to demand that God justify Himself, to retreat into isolated grief.
But when Eskom plunges our street into darkness, Mama Dlamini drags her small generator onto her veranda. Not to power her own TV or fridge. To plug in speakers.
And she plays worship music. Loud. Into the night. Into the fear. Into the neighbour's house where the tsotsis once gathered.
I asked her once, "Mama, why do you do this? Does it even change anything?"
She looked at me—truly looked—and said: "Mfundisi, I am not the light. I just hold the switch. The Light Himself decides what the darkness does."
She does not calculate ROI on her generator fuel. She does not measure the anointing by decibel levels. She does not need her neighbours to thank her or her church to recognize her or her nation to honour her.
She is not bread. She is a daughter of the King, holding a switch in the darkness, content to be unseen because the Light is seen.
Prayer:
Bawo wethu, Father of lights in whom there is no shadow of turning—
Deliver me from the poverty of performing for belonging. Forgive me for the years I spent marketing my soul to consumers who could never afford me. Anchor me in whose I am, not what I carry. Anchor me in whose I am, not what I produce. Anchor me in whose I am, not who applauds me.
Make me as content in obscurity as I imagine I would be in acclaim. Teach me that the upper room was smaller than the temple courts, yet held more power. Remind me that Your Son was rejected by the crowd He fed, yet did not cease being the Bread of Life.
And when the bread-seekers come—as they will—give me the gracious courage to offer them not myself, but You. Not my loaves, but Your Life. Not my performance, but Your finished work.
For I am not bread. I am Your child. And that is enough. Amen.
Harold Mawela writes from Akasia, Pretoria, where he watches generators hum and hopes to hear, one day, the only applause that matters: "Well done, good and faithful servant."
https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast/you-are-not-bread/id1506692775?i=1000749376691
https://youtu.be/8A2ydg4f0BA?si=lENoffERxKK3avxR
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