DEVOTION: Remembering Jesus

Leila Halawe | @LHalawe

And just like that, November is almost over and December is fast descending upon us. Blink and Christmas will be here, with all its tinsel and Christmas carols and fruit cake. I don't know about you, but I don't think I'm ready for Christmas because it feels like just yesterday that I was handing out Easter eggs. Surely it hasn't been eight months already?


Like it or, Christmas is coming. And so are all the crowds vying for the latest toys and hams. The gatherings will start up, which for some means stress and anxiety, while for others it will bring joy and community. For some, this season will bring unprecedented loneliness and heartache. So much happens during December in the lead up to Christmas and then before we know it, Christmas Day has come and gone and we start getting ready for the next social event.

Yet in the midst of all the crazy that December silly season brings, let's not forget to remember that there is a reason for the season, and it's far from silly. For in December, as we stop to observe Christmas, we stop to remember that Salvation came to earth in the form of a baby in a manger.

In this season, let's not forget to remember to give thanks for the birth of the Saviour.

In this season, let's not forget to remember Jesus, the One that left His rightful place in Heaven to come down and walk among those He created.

Let's not forget to remember that Jesus knew that coming down and taking on flesh would be the beginning of a journey that would end in Him dying on a cross while people cast lots over His clothing.

Let's not forget that Jesus was born for us, so that we could be reconciled with our Father in Heaven and spent eternity with Him.

In the midst of all that is happening around us, let's not forget to stop and seek His face; to fix our gaze on the One who loved us so much that He willingly came down knowing that He would end up dying for us.

As you prepare for Christmas and whatever that brings with it, I pray that you would have some moments of sweet fellowship with Jesus, knowing that His birth on earth was with you in mind.

This post was cross-posted at ICFW.

Leila (Lays) Halawe is a Sydney based coffee loving nonfiction writer and blogger. She has published a short devotional, Love By Devotion, and shares her views on life and faith via her blog page Looking In . You can connect with her via Facebook at Leila Halawe Author  and via Twitter at Leila Halawe.

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DEVOTIONS: He calls me Daughter.

By Leila Halawe | @LHalawe 

Daughter. He called me daughter.

As I stood at a prayer and worship night at church, arms stretched high with tears streaming down my face, I cried out to God. I opened up my heart to Him, showing Him all the hurt and anger and bitterness and heartache and resentment; I showed Him all the ugly that was withing me and in that moment, He whispered the word, 'daughter.'

Daughter.

Despite my rants and rages and the ugliness that was in my heart, He did not turn away; He drew near and He drew me near to Him and called me daughter. When others would have walked away, He came closer still. God did not shy away from my anger or hurt, He did not look away in disgust like some of us may have done. Instead, He leaned in and called me daughter. 

Daughter. I am His Daughter. I am His Child.

In that moment, God reminded me of a couple of things: firstly, I had lost sight of Him. It is so easy for us to forget God; to carry on with life and forget to take time to look into the eyes of Jesus and just be. In our flawed human state, we so easily forget that He is with us in the everyday moments of life. and so we go on without Him until we hit a stumbling block or a ditch and we find ourselves crying out to Him. Secondly, I had forgotten who I belonged to. I was the daughter of the Creator of the universe. Since the moment He created me, in this very moment now, and for all eternity, I was and am and always will be the daughter of the Creator of the universe. The King of kings and Lord of lords. That is who I belong to and that is where my identity comes from.

In a society that tries to shape our identity be telling us how to be and who to be and what to be, we need to remember that our identity is found in Christ, the One that created us and died for us. We have all had hurtful words spoken to us or over us. Maybe it was your parents as you were growing up telling you that you were a mistake. Or maybe it was the schoolyard bully picking on you while others looked on, or your teacher telling you that you would never amount to anything. Or it could have been your partner telling you that you were unlovable as they walked out the door. I'm not sure what it is for you but I can tell you this: when God looks at you He does not see a mistake or someone who is unworthy or unloveable, He sees His Child. He sees His son. He sees His daughter. And He looks down on you with a heart loves you more than you could ever comprehend.

Today, as you go about your day, take a moment and remind yourself that He is calling you Daughter. Or Son. And lift up your eyes and heart to your Heaven Father knowing that He loves you.

Note: This post was also published on Looking In.

Leila (Lays) Halawe is a Sydney based coffee loving nonfiction writer and blogger. She has published a short devotional, Love By Devotion, and shares her views on life and faith via her blog page Looking In . You can connect with her via Facebook at Leila Halawe Author  and via Twitter at Leila Halawe.

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DEVOTION: Some things never change

By Leila Halawe | @LHalawe

Life is constantly changing. Every day something changes; the news, the Prime Minister (is Scott Morrison still leading Australia??), people, the weather. All around us, nature is changing and day by day we see subtle changes reminding us that a new season is coming whether we like it or not. Every day, people are dying, and babies are being born. Life is a constant cycle of change and it’s going to happen with or without our participation.

Our lives can be very much like that, too. I’m sure if we all looked back on the year so far, we can identity a few, if not a lot of things that have changed. I can tell you that a lot has changed for me this last year. Some good, some bad. I’ve made some new friends, I had a friend pass away, I’ve completed some study while also moving tackling my Masters. I’ve had some health issues and watched friends have health issues. I have seen prayers answered and have desperately cried new prayers. It’s just life.

But one thing that never changes is God. Ever.

Numbers 23:19 tells us,

 'God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfil?' 

I don’t know about you, but this is one of the most comforting scriptures in the bible for me. It is a clear promise that God hasn’t changed, isn’t changing and will never change. And this is great news for us because it means that what He promised, He will fulfil.

When He promises that He will never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6), He won’t leave us or forsake us. 

When He promises that He will walk through the darkest valley with us (Psalm 23:4), He will remain by our side. 

When He promises that He forgives our sins and they are forgotten (psalm 103:12), He will forgive and not hold our sins against us. 

When God tells us not to fear because He has redeemed us and knows us by name (Isaiah 433:1), He will call us by name and redeem us. 


God is not a human that He would change His mind and so when read one of His promises or declarations for us, we can be confident that He is unchanging and faithful to fulfil not just what He has promised, but far more than we can ever imagine or deserve. And that is so very comforting.

This was cross posted at ICFW

Leila (Lays) Halawe is a Sydney based coffee loving nonfiction writer and blogger. She has published a short devotional, Love By Devotion, and shares her views on life and faith via her blog page Looking In . You can connect with her via Facebook at Leila Halawe Author  and via Twitter at Leila Halawe.

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DEVOTION: Wrestling with God

By Leila Halawe | @LHalawe

When I became a Christian, the hardest thing for me was surrender – surrendering my life, my heart, my dreams, everything. God has a sense of humour because He has made me fiercely independent and put a control streak in me, yet He regularly asks me to hand over control to Him, and that has been hard for me. Very hard. So when God started asking me to completely depend on Him, it was foreign ground and I found myself wrestling with God instead of being still before Him. I found myself handing things over, only to try and wrestle them back from God. I hand it over, then try to wrestle it back. Hand it over, wrestle it back. I have spent many a night wrestling with God over things and to be honest, I felt bad about it for a while and felt like I wasn’t being a proper Christian, but then I stumbled across Jacob in the Old Testament and found myself feeling a little better.

In Genesis 32:22-31 we read about Jacob wrestling with God:

“That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The man asked him, “what is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. Then the man said, “your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with god and with humans and have overcome.” Jacob said, “please tell me your name.” But he replied, “why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “it is because I saw god face to face, and yet my life was spared.”. The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.”

When I read about Jacob, I found myself identifying with his situation. As I said, I’ve wrestled with God often and at times have kept wrestling when I should have thrown in the towel long ago (that would be that stubbornness that I mentioned earlier.) But there were a couple of things that really stood out for me when reading Jacob’s encounter. Firstly, Jacob was stubborn. As in, really stubborn. As in, even an out of joint hip didn’t stop him from wrestling with God. I have been, on many an occasion, called a stubborn mule, and with good reason; I can be exceptionally stubborn and when I dig my heels in on something, it takes a lot to shift me. Which can be good and bad. Good in some instances, bad in others, especially when it comes to being stubborn with God because as much as I like to think I know better, to date, God’s ways and plans have always better than mine. But it’s God’s response to Jacob’s stubbornness that really intrigues me.

When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. (Gen 32:25)

While this may look like Jacob was too powerful for God so God had to poke his hip to stop him, it is the complete opposite. God poked Jacob’s hip to protect Him; He knew that Jacob would keep going and going and it would eventually end badly for him, so to protect him, God pokes his hip to slow him down and prevent him getting hurt even more. He needed to slow him down. He needed to get him to a place where he could see him face to face. Where Jacob could focus on God’s face and hear God’s voice because the thing is, it’s only when we stop and look at God face to face, when we slow down and come face to face with Jesus, that our lives are changed.

God wants us to sit face to face with our Saviour.

God will slow us down, and occasionally stop us completely, to protect us from ourselves. He wants us to be with Him face to face, without distraction, so that we can properly hear His voice. So that we can walk in the ways He wants us to, not the ways we want to, because we can be stubborn and cause ourselves harm without realising it. And it’s only after we are face to face with Jesus that we are changed.

‘the sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.’ (Gen 32:31)

Jacob called the place he wrestled with God Peniel and Peniel means face of God. Amid his wrestling, when God slowed him down, Jacob saw the face of God. Jacob walked away with a limp that stayed with him because he had been touched by God. And when God touches our lives, we are forever changed. We are never the same. It is in those moments of intimacy with God, when we are before Him, when our heart is stilled on Him and our eyes are fixed on Him, when we are looking Him face on, that He will touch us and change us forever.

What are we wrestling with God about today? What do we still need to surrender? Maybe today, we will allow God to slow us down, to stop us so that we can look Him in the eye. Maybe today, as we surrender over whatever it is we’re wrestling, God will touch ‘our hip’ and change us. Maybe today, we will see His face and be ever changed into the likeness of Jesus. Whatever it is you may be wrestling God for, I pray that you will see His face and be forever changed.

This devotional was cross posted at ICFW and Looking In 

Leila (Lays) Halawe is a Sydney based coffee loving nonfiction writer and blogger. She has published a short devotional, Love By Devotion, and shares her views on life and faith via her blog page Looking In . You can connect with her via Facebook at Leila Halawe Author  and via Twitter at Leila Halawe.

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DEVOTION: Live Intentionally

By Leila Halawe | @LHalawe

At the beginning of the 2018, I sat down in the early hours of the morning and decided that I would choose a word for the year. A word that would define my year and my actions and that would keep me on the right track. As I thought about it, the word I ended up with was ‘intentional.’

Intentional. The more I thought about it, the more the word grew on me and from that point on I decided that I would be live intentionally. I decided that I would be intentional in every area of my life; my faith, my relationships, my work, my health. I no longer would waste time or invest my time and energy in areas that are not good for me or that distract me, but I would be intentional about who I spent time with and what activities I did and where I poured my energy. I hung up the word in my apartment and even bought a pretty necklace with 'live intentionally' on it.

But living intentionally was easy in theory but a little harder in practice. It’s easy to miss how easily we get distracted, or pulled into relationships that aren’t healthy or activity that doesn’t replenish the soul. Life is full of distractions and sometimes those distractions are good, but at times, they aren’t and we lose sight of how much time and energy we waste on something that God may not have wanted us to engage with in the first place.

I know this first hand.

At the best of times I have the attention span of a puppy dog and can get just as excited as a puppy when a shiny new distraction comes along. My best intentions of staying on task go out the window as I allow distractions, in whatever form they come, take me off track and redirect my steps.

But, Jesus.

If there was anyone that could role model what being intentional looked like, it was Jesus. While we read in the Gospels that Jesus regularly stopped to eat and have fellowship with people, He never lost sight of what it was He was meant to do; He never lost sight of His purpose and was intentional about when He stopped and when He kept going. In Mark 1, we see Jesus demonstrate just what being intentional looks, when after a whole evening of healing people, the disciples come looking for Him to take Him back to the people,

Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else — to the nearby villages — so I can preach there also. That is why I have come”. So he travelled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. (Mark 1:36-39).

The people were looking for Jesus because they wanted to listen to Him, to be healed, to be transformed. Crowds followed Him everywhere and repeatedly we read that Jesus ‘had compassion’ on them. But while He had compassion and He stopped to sit and fellowship, He never allowed it to distract Him. He never allowed it to get in the way of what He came for, and that was to suffer on the Cross for our sins. Jesus walking away from the crowds in Mark 1:36-39 wasn’t a result of a lack of compassion or disregard, it was a result of focus. Of intention on what was important, and that was the plans and purposes that God had laid out for Jesus while on earth.

Jesus set the example for us on how to live and how to be intentional with our actions and our time and our heart. He shows us the importance of spending time in prayer and the importance of stopping to have fellowship with others. He shows us that sometimes, we need to make the hard choices and go, even when others are looking for us to stay. But most importantly, He shows us what love looks like. Not the romantic Hollywood inspired love, but real pure love. Unselfish love that intentionally puts others first. 

Life is frantic as it is and we’re all being pulled in every direction, making us more time poor by the day, so let's be intentional. Let’s be intentional in spending time in prayer, just sitting at the feet of Jesus. Let’s get intentional about relationships, and invest more time into those that God wants us to invest time into and walk away from those that God is asking us to walk away from. Let’s get intentional about every area of our lives so that we can be intentional about being about our Father’s business and walking out His will and plans for us. Because at the end of the day, we’re here to glorify Him and point as many people to Him before we’re called to eternity, and that is something to be intentional about.

*This post was cross posted on Looking In

Leila (Lays) Halawe is a Sydney based coffee loving nonfiction writer and blogger. She has published a short devotional, Love By Devotion, and shares her views on life and faith via her blog page Looking In . You can connect with her via Facebook at Leila Halawe Author  and via Twitter at Leila Halawe.

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DEVOTION: God moments in the darkness

By Leila Halawe | @LHalawe

A few years ago, I was given the privileged to volunteer in an Indigenous community in far north Queensland. I was to be a teacher’s aide for classes one and two, which I was excited about because I love children and spending a few weeks playing teacher was a nice break from the corporate world I was in. I prepared as best as I could and was sent on my way with another lady, both full of excitement, talking about all the things we would do and how fun it would be. Until we landed. On arrival all excitement fled and was replaced by nervousness, anxiousness and unease. There was a heaviness in the community that was so strong you could almost taste it. What we had imagined was so far from what we walked into that we both considered jumping back onto the plane and going home that same night. It was pure stubbornness and a little bit of pride that kept me there and as I look back, I am rather thankful for it.

The community we were in was a dry community (meaning alcohol was legally forbidden) because they had been plagued by some much alcohol and drug abuse problems. And unfortunately, the community was still suffering the effects of it. Adults spent most of the day gambling and left the children to look after themselves. Each day kids would come in barely able to stay awake because their parents were up partying or fighting all night. They were hungry because there was no food in the house. They were grotty because no one at home cared enough to bathe them or change their clothes. It was a hard place to be in and by end of the first week, I was ready to go home because it all just felt too hard.

Then one day, it all changed when one of the little students came and sat by me and reached up to play with my hair. It was such a simple gesture, but it was a game changer because it was at that moment that I realised that while I was in a dark community, God was still there and still working. I realised that God’s beauty and the works of His hand can still be found in the darkest places if we just look for it. That little girl playing with my hair was a small gesture of sweetness on a draining day and from that moment, I started looking for the little God moments. And when I started to look for them, let me tell you, I could see God everywhere.

In the elderly lady who share her faith with us.

In the elder who gave us permission to swim in his pond.

In the children that would curl up in my lap while I read to them.

In the little boy who snuggled his face into my neck and slept while we waited and waited and waited for his mother to come and collect him.

In the quiet moments before sunset when you could see for miles and miles across the land.

In the peace that surrounded me whenever I recited psalm twenty-three.

The enemy would like us to believe that there is no hope in the darkness, but the truth is that the enemy is a liar because God is still found in the darkness. David says it best when he says, “If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” (psalm 139:11-12) Hope can still be found in the darkness if we look to the One who conquered darkness, Jesus. The darkness has no power over Him, so it has no power over us. If we seek Him, we will find Him, no matter how dark the situation. If we look for His fingerprints, we will see them everywhere we go; in His creation. In His people. In His love for us. If we would just look.

Leila (Lays) Halawe is a Sydney based coffee loving nonfiction writer and blogger. She has published a short devotional, Love By Devotion, and shares her views on life and faith via her blog page Looking In . You can connect with her via Facebook at Leila Halawe Author  and via Twitter at Leila Halawe.

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Billy Graham’s grandson bringing the Gospel to Alice Springs

By Leila Halawe

In 1959, America evangelist, Dr Billy Graham, came to Australia to hold many Crusades that would see thousands of people gather in the one place to hear about Jesus. During his Sydney visit, it is estimated that 150,000 people gathered to hear him speak. 

His purpose for the Crusade was to share the love of God with anyone that would listen, encouraging people to turn from their sin and give their hearts to Jesus. He was unapologetic about the Gospel, never wavering in his belief that salvation could only be found through the Saviour, and he shared it in a way that everyday people could understand. 

He left a legacy behind that has impacted thousands upon thousands of lives. 57 years later, his legacy is still going strong as his grandson, Will Graham, son of Franklin Graham, takes up the mantle and comes to Australia to share the Gospel.

An ordained minister and anointed evangelist, Will has been holding evangelistic outreaches around the world since 2006. Displaying the same unwavering faith as his grandfather and father before him, he will in May this year bring his outreach to the heart of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. 

The local churches of Alice Springs, in partnership with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Australia, will be hosting Will as he shares with all about the Good News of Jesus Christ. It is an event that has been months in the making and one that mobilised and united churches across Alice Springs. It is drawing crowds from near and far, with many travelling across Australia to attend, as well as coming from overseas.

Reality Alice Springs will be held at Blatherskite Park and run over three days, starting on the Friday evening and closing on the Sunday evening. Over the three days there will be a range of events including Youth and Kids events, Family events, testimonials, praise and worship, as well as participation by the local Indigenous artists. 

There will be a Combined Churches service on the Sunday morning, a call to the local church community to unite and worship together as one corporate Body, before Will brings the weekend to a close by taking the platform one final time on Sunday evening.

As excitement builds up for Will’s visit, many prayers are being lifted for thousands to attend and encounter Jesus in such a profound way that revival breaks out and spreads far and wide across Australia.

To find out more about Reality Alice Springs, go to http://blog.billygraham.org.au/reality-alice-springs/

LEILA HALAWE is a Sydney based coffee obsessed writer and blogger. She has published a short devotional, Love By Devotion and shares her life and random observations via her blog, Looking In. You can connect with Leila via her blog, www.misslays.com, Twitter @LHalawe or her Leila Halawe Author page on Facebook.