Some of us were born in the Valley. Some of us got here by a job, a marriage, a military order, or a parent who needed us close. Either way, there are days this place feels like home and days it just feels like where you happen to be.

About 2,600 years ago, a group of families woke up in a city they never asked to live in. Babylon had carried them away from Jerusalem. They wanted out, and some voices around them kept promising it would be over soon.

Then a letter arrived from the prophet Jeremiah. Build houses and live in them, it said. Plant gardens. Let your children marry. And then this:

"But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." (Jeremiah 29:7, ESV)

God's instruction was to plant something and stay a while. And He tied their own good to the good of the place around them.

It is easy to talk about the Valley like a weather report. The traffic on 77, the heat that hangs on until it finally breaks, the prices, the politics. I've done the same.

Jeremiah's letter asks for something harder. Pray for this place by name. Your street. The school your kids walk into on Monday. The small business on the corner trying to make it through another month. The neighbor whose truck hasn't moved in a week.

Prayer changes the one praying first. You can't ask God every morning to bless Harlingen or Brownsville or Weslaco and stay a stranger to the people in it. Somewhere in the asking, the place starts to become yours.

So this week, pick one spot in your town and pray for it on purpose. Drive past it and say its name to God.

May the Lord give you peace where you live, and may your street be better because you're on it.

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.

Tell us one thing your town needs prayer for this week. Post it in The 956 Rundown Facebook group, and I'll carry some of those needs into a prayer for the Valley in an upcoming Sunday Word.

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