The holidays are close now. In a few weeks a lot of us will be planning a Thanksgiving table and counting who's coming.

Some of our neighbors are counting something else. The Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley says up to 146,000 people across the Valley experience food insecurity. That's a lot of kitchens where the groceries run out before the week does.

Those families live on our streets. Their kids sit in the same classrooms as ours.

Isaiah spoke to people who kept their religious habits faithfully and still missed the hungry family down the road. God told them plainly what He was looking for:

"If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday." (Isaiah 58:10, ESV)

Look at where that promise lands. When we pour ourselves out for someone who is hungry, God says our own light rises. The Father who feeds His children also lifts the ones who share the bread.

So today, let's pray for this place together.

A prayer for the Valley

Father, You see every table in the Valley, the full ones and the bare ones. Provide for the families stretching the last of the groceries this week. Strengthen the people at the food bank, the pantries and the church kitchens who feed our neighbors. And open our hands, so that what You've given us reaches someone who needs it. Amen.

Say it with me: I am fed by a Father who sees every table.

Pastor Reyes Castillo

More from Pastor Reyes: his books, including Called by Name and Freedom Code, are at thewayofthewarrior.org/books. Tap a cover to hear a one-minute message about why each one was written.

Help feed a neighbor this week. Food Bank RGV in Pharr welcomes volunteers 12 and older (under 16 with an adult), and by its count every $10 given provides 50 meals. Sign up for a shift or give at foodbankrgv.com.

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