The Gospel According to Load-Shedding: Six Bible Verses for When Eskom Lets You Down

If you live in Johannesburg in 2026, you have a complicated relationship with your power utility. Eskom is part of your week in the same way that traffic is part of your week and load-shedding is part of your week. There is no escape from it. There is only the way you respond to it.

Our Bible study has been running in Parkmore for ten years, which means we have lived through a lot of load-shedding. We have had Wednesday nights cancelled by stage 6. We have had Sunday afternoons cut short in the middle of a Korean lesson. We have had entire seasons where the WiFi cut out mid-sentence and the conversation kept going over WhatsApp voice notes. Through all of it, we have noticed that the Bible has more to say about waiting in the dark than we expected.

Six Bible verses for when Eskom lets you down

Here are the six passages that our Sandton Bible study community has returned to most often over the years of load-shedding. They are short. They are honest. They have carried us.

1. Psalm 46:10 — "Be still, and know that I am God"

This is the verse everyone quotes, and it is the verse everyone should actually live by. When the power goes out at 8pm on a Wednesday and you are halfway through dinner, the Bible is not asking you to panic. It is asking you to be still. The candles come out. The conversation gets quieter. The phone goes down. Sometimes the best Wednesday night is the one Eskom gives you without asking.

2. Isaiah 40:31 — "Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength"

When you have been working since 6am, and the generator is also off, and the inverter is beeping, and you still have a Bible study to lead in ninety minutes — this is the verse that gets you through. Hope, in the Bible, is not a wish. It is a discipline. It is the decision to keep showing up when everything around you is failing. Load-shedding is good practice for that.

3. Matthew 6:34 — "Do not worry about tomorrow"

You cannot prepare for stage 8. The EskomSePush app is a guess. The schedule is a suggestion. The Bible is asking you to stop pretending you can control the next twelve hours. Tomorrow's load-shedding is tomorrow's problem. Tonight's Wednesday night is tonight's Wednesday night.

4. Psalm 23:4 — "Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil"

Walking through a dark house with a phone flashlight is not the same as walking through the valley of the shadow of death. But the principle is the same. You are not alone in the dark. There is a presence with you. And you will get to the other end of the hallway.

5. Romans 8:28 — "In all things God works for the good of those who love him"

Including load-shedding. Including the cancelled meeting. Including the four-hour commute home. Including the dinner that went cold on the table. The Bible does not promise that those things will not happen. It promises that something is being worked out in them.

6. Revelation 22:5 — "There will be no more night"

The last verse of the Bible is about the end of darkness. Every stage 6, every inverter, every candle on a Wednesday night in Sandton, is a small rehearsal for the end of the story. We are a community that lives with candles, and we are a community that has read the last chapter.

The Wednesday night that Eskom gave us

The best Wednesday night our Bible study has ever had happened because of a stage 4 blackout. The WiFi was out. Half the room could not log in. We moved to WhatsApp voice notes. Then we moved to a phone call. Then we moved to a small group of six people who happened to all be in driving distance of Parkmore. We sat in the dark with candles, finished the Psalm we had been on for three weeks, and prayed together for an hour. None of us wanted to leave.

If you live in Johannesburg and you have been wondering whether to try a Bible study in Sandton, this is the version of it you should know about. The version that is small, that knows about load-shedding, that does not pretend to have the WiFi together. The version that still meets at 7:30pm on a Wednesday even when the lights are out.

How to join

Call Mr. Sim on +27 77 487 1295 or Ms. Dora on +27 67 442 4461 any weekday. We will send you the Wednesday link. If the WiFi is out, we will move to WhatsApp. If the WhatsApp is out, we will meet in Parkmore. The Wednesday night is the Wednesday night, with or without Eskom.