Title: The Mathematics of Multiplication
Subtitle: When Your Subtraction Becomes His Addition
By: Harold Mawela (Akasia, Pretoria)
I was sitting on my porch in Akasia last week, watching the sunset paint our sky in shades of orange and purple. My neighbour, Mr. Dlamini, was busy in his backyard, preparing the soil for his summer vegetable garden. He had a bag of seed potatoes, and I watched him take a perfectly good potato, cut it into pieces, and bury each piece in the dark ground.
"You're destroying that potato," I called out to him with a smile.
He laughed that deep, rumbling laugh of his. "Harold, you're a writer. You should know better. I'm not destroying it. I'm multiplying it."
And just like that, the Holy Spirit tapped me on the shoulder. Write this down.
The Arithmetic That Breaks Your Calculator
Let us define our terms clearly. The world has its own mathematics, and it operates on a simple formula: Keep = Have. hoard = safe. protect = possess. The world teaches you to calculate your life by what you can hold in your hands, what you can see with your eyes, what you can deposit in your bank account at Absa or FNB.
But God's mathematics? It does not compute on earthly spreadsheets.
The Scripture declares unequivocally in John 12:24: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain."
Imagine, if you will, a grain of wheat holding a board meeting with itself. "I have here," the grain says, "a valuable asset. I have nutritional content. I have potential. I have purpose. And you want me to what? Fall into the ground? Get dirty? Disintegrate? Die? That sounds like a terrible investment strategy!"
But the grain that refuses to die remains just that—one lonely grain. It is technically "safe." It is technically "preserved." But it is also technically sterile.
Here in South Africa, we understand this principle better than most. We are a nation that has seen death—literal death—give birth to freedom. We have watched Mandela walk out of prison after twenty-seven years of dying to his own ambitions, and we saw a nation resurrect. We have seen the grave clothes become swaddling clothes for a new democracy .
When Load Shedding Teaches Theology
Let me bring this home to you in a way that hurts—and heals.
We are all tired of load shedding. Eskom has become the punchline of every joke in this country. We sit in darkness, we lose business, we lose productivity, we lose our minds waiting for the lights to come back on. But listen to me carefully, child of God: Load shedding is not the enemy of your destiny; it is the context of your dependence.
Every time the lights go out in Pretoria, something happens that you don't notice. The candles come out. The families gather in one room. The cellphone batteries run low, and suddenly people talk to each other. The generators kick in for those who can afford them. The solar panels become more than just a status symbol—they become survival.
What the enemy meant for darkness, God is using to teach us to generate our own light.
The argument can be formulated thus:
1. God is the source of all light and power (James 1:17).
2. When earthly power fails, we are forced to acknowledge our dependence on Him.
3. Therefore, the temporary darkness of load shedding can become the permanent dawn of deeper faith .
I am not saying Eskom is a blessing from heaven. But I am saying that the God of heaven can take the failures of earth and use them to rewire your spiritual circuitry. He multiplies in the dark what He conceals in the light.
The Personal Story: My Soweto Miracle
In 2010, during the FIFA World Cup, I learned this lesson in a way that still brings tears to my eyes when I remember it. I had been saving for years to take my family to watch a match. The Bafana Bafana jerseys were bought, the vuvuzelas were polished, the excitement was palpable. I had R5,000 set aside—a fortune for us then—specifically for this once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Then the phone rang. It was my cousin from Soweto. His mother—my aunt, the woman who had raised me for three years when my own mother was sick—needed an operation. Urgently. The hospital wouldn't move without payment. He needed R5,000 by Friday.
I sat on my bed and did the math. The World Cup was happening in my country for the first time in history. It would never happen again in my lifetime. My children would never forgive me. I had saved for this. It was my money. I had earned it.
But the mathematics of the kingdom kept nagging at me. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies...
I made the call. I transferred the money. I watched my children's faces fall when I told them we weren't going. I watched my wife's confusion as she tried to understand why I would "throw away" our family dream.
That Friday, I drove to Soweto to visit my aunt in hospital. She was weak, but she was alive. She held my hand and said, "Harold, you were the baby I carried on my back. Now you carry me."
Three weeks later, a letter arrived. I had completely forgotten about a small investment I had made years earlier—a tiny piece of land in Soshanguve that I had bought for next to nothing. Someone wanted to buy it. For R50,000. Ten times what I had "lost."
Is it not true that we all have such stories? Times when we gave and thought we had lost, only to find that heaven's accounting department works on a different ledger? I am not preaching a "give-to-get" prosperity gospel. I am preaching a "die-to-live" kingdom principle .
The Paradox of the Parable of the Talents
Let us go deeper into the Scriptures. Turn with me in your spirit to Matthew 25, the parable of the talents. We often read this story and focus on the servants who gained five and two more talents. We celebrate their productivity. We celebrate their gain.
But we miss the profound theological truth embedded in the story: What they gained was never theirs to begin with.
A common objection is, "But I worked for what I have! I earned it! I saved it! I built it!" However, this fails because it misunderstands the nature of stewardship. The sermon I heard recently on Logos.com put it this way: the servants in the parable were not owners; they were stewards. The master delivered his goods to them. Everything they had—including the ability to trade and gain more—came from the master .
The third servant, the one who buried his talent, thought the talent was his to protect. He was afraid. He was risk-averse. He wanted to return to the master exactly what the master had given. "Look, there you have what is yours," he said (Matthew 25:25).
And the master called him wicked and lazy!
Why? Because the master expected multiplication. He expected the seed to be planted, not preserved. He expected risk, not retreat. He expected faith, not fear.
We must sound the alarm against this spirit of preservation that has infected the South African church. We are so afraid of losing our buildings, our members, our money, our reputations, that we have buried everything in the ground. And then we wonder why the church has no power, why the youth are leaving, why the townships are still in darkness while we sit in our well-lit sanctuaries singing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."
True liberation is found only in submitting to the mathematics of the Master. When you realize that nothing you have is yours—not your car, not your house, not your children, not your talent, not your life—then you are finally free to use it all for His glory .
The Recent News: SARS, Inflation, and the Economy
I read this morning that South Africans are feeling the pinch. The cost of living is rising. SARS is knocking on every door. Petrol prices make us wince every time we pass the filling station. The rand fluctuates like a yo-yo on Red Bull. We are holding onto our money tighter than ever because we are afraid of tomorrow.
But let me ask you a question that will burn in your spirit: What if your financial pressure is not a sign of God's absence, but a classroom for God's abundance?
When Jesus fed the five thousand, He started with a boy's lunch—five loaves and two fish. That was all the food they had. It was insufficient. It was laughable in the face of such a massive need. But Andrew, the disciple who found the boy, didn't do the math the way the other disciples did. The other disciples said, "Send the people away." Andrew said, "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?" (John 6:9).
Andrew had the sense to bring the insufficiency to Jesus. The others kept calculating the insufficiency among themselves.
Reason itself, illuminated by Scripture and confirmed in our deepest longings, compels us to acknowledge that our resources are never the point. The point is always the Provider.
When you bring your insufficient five loaves to Jesus, He does not add to them. He does not give you six loaves or seven loaves. He multiplies them. He creates abundance out of insufficiency. He makes a way where there was no way. He turns your mourning into dancing, your fasting into feasting, and your lack into overflow .
The Prophetic Confrontation: The Spirit of Fear
I must confront something today, and I do it in love but with the authority of Scripture. There is a spirit of fear that has gripped the body of Christ in this nation. We are afraid of what the politicians will do. We are afraid of what the economy will do. We are afraid of crime. We are afraid of the future. We are afraid of death itself.
And this fear has made us bury our talents.
We are not planting seeds because we are afraid of losing seeds. We are not sharing the gospel because we are afraid of rejection. We are not giving generously because we are afraid of poverty. We are not stepping out in faith because we are afraid of failure.
But the Scripture declares unequivocally: "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7).
Let us define our terms clearly once more. Fear is not humility. Some of you think you are being humble when you say, "I can't do that. I'm not gifted enough. I'm not rich enough. I'm not educated enough." That is not humility. That is unbelief dressed in church clothes.
True humility says, "I can't do this, but the God in me can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." True humility takes the five loaves, brings them to Jesus, and watches the miracle happen. True humility plants the seed and trusts the God of the harvest.
We must dismantle this cultural compromise that says, "We are just poor South Africans. We must just survive." No! You are a child of the King! You are not called to survive; you are called to thrive. You are not called to bury; you are called to plant. You are not called to preserve; you are called to multiply .
The War Metaphor: Attack Is Proof of Purpose
In the military, there is a principle that every soldier understands: Attack is the proof that your enemy anticipates your success. The devil does not waste his ammunition on empty barracks. He does not launch missiles at wastelands. He attacks what threatens him.
If you are under attack today—financially, emotionally, relationally, physically—rejoice! It means you have something the enemy wants to destroy. It means you are carrying seed that, if planted, will produce a harvest that will shake the kingdom of darkness.
The apostle Paul understood this. He wrote in Philippians 3:7-8: "But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ."
Paul was a man who had everything to lose. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He had pedigree, education, status, and power. And he counted it all as skubala—the Greek word for dung, for refuse, for garbage—compared to knowing Christ.
Why? Because Paul understood the mathematics of multiplication. He knew that losing his old life was the only way to gain the new life. He knew that dying to his ambitions was the only way to live for God's purposes. He knew that being buried as a seed was the only way to become a harvest .
The Practical Application: How to Die Daily
How do we apply this in Akasia, in Soweto, in Sandton, in Mamelodi? How do we live out this paradox in a world that screams at us to protect ourselves?
First, redefine your relationship with your resources. Everything you have is on loan from God. Your children are on loan. Your marriage is on loan. Your career is on loan. Your health is on loan. The moment you truly believe this, you stop clutching and start releasing. You stop protecting and start planting. You stop calculating and start sacrificing.
Second, embrace the process of the seed. The seed does not become a harvest overnight. It lies in the dark, cold ground for a season. It dies before it rises. If you are in a dark season right now—if you are buried under circumstances you don't understand—take heart. You are not buried; you are planted. The darkness is not your tomb; it is your womb. Something new is being formed in you.
Third, give with expectation. When you give your time, your money, your talent, your energy to the Lord's work, do not give as if you are throwing it away. Give as a farmer gives seed—with the absolute confidence that there will be a harvest. 2 Corinthians 9:6 says, "Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously."
Fourth, live with eternal perspective. The problem with most of us is that we are calculating our lives with the wrong currency. We are measuring in rands and cents when heaven measures in souls and service. We are counting our possessions when heaven counts our sacrifices. We are worried about our retirement when we should be worried about our reunion with Christ.
Jesus asked the most penetrating question in all of Scripture: "What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" (Matthew 16:26).
Imagine, if you will, standing at the judgment seat of Christ. You have a pile of gold in your hands—all the wealth you accumulated on earth. But your hands are empty of works, empty of souls won, empty of seeds planted. And Jesus looks at you and says, "What is that in your hands?"
You say, "It's my wealth, Lord. I protected it. I saved it. I kept it safe."
And He says, "But what did you gain? What did you multiply? Where is the harvest from the seed I gave you?" .
The Akasia Morning
I walked past Mr. Dlamini's garden this morning. The ground that looked so bare last week is now showing tiny green shoots. The seed potatoes died. They decomposed. They gave up their potato-ness. And in their death, they became many.
My neighbour was right. He wasn't destroying potatoes. He was multiplying them.
Child of God, whatever you are losing today—look again. It might not be a loss at all. It might be a planting. Whatever is being taken from you—examine it closely. It might not be theft; it might be sowing. Whatever is dying in your life—weep if you must, but then wait. The harvest is coming.
The mathematics of heaven never fail. The seed always produces after its kind. The death always gives way to resurrection. The mourning always turns to morning.
And one day, when you stand before the Master, He will not ask you how much you kept. He will ask you how much you planted. He will not reward your preservation; He will reward your multiplication. He will not celebrate your safety; He will celebrate your sacrifice.
So I leave you with this challenge from the porch of my heart in Akasia: Stop calculating like the world and start trusting like the kingdom. Give until it hurts. Love until it costs. Serve until you're empty. Die until you live.
For unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain.
That is the mathematics of multiplication. That is the paradox of the gospel. That is the path of the disciple.
May God give you the courage to become seed.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, You are the Grain of Wheat who fell into the ground of this world and died, so that we might become a great harvest. Teach us Your mathematics. Loosen our grip on the things that are killing us. Give us faith to plant what we have been protecting. Turn our mourning into multiplication, our loss into gain, our death into life. We trust You, not our calculators. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Reflection Question:
What "seed" is God asking you to release today—your time, your money, your child, your career, your fear, your pride—so that He can multiply it for His glory?
Harold Mawela is a Christian author living in Akasia, Pretoria. He writes to help believers navigate the paradoxes of faith with courage and joy.
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