Growing up, my parents taught my siblings and me that no matter how poor and limited our resources, we had a responsibility and duty to care for those less fortunate. My dad, Pablo, continues to live out this commitment as the head of the food pantry at his church in New York City.
For more than a decade, he has worked with others in the church to ensure that those who are hungry in the community have food to eat. He often tells me, “You can’t imagine how many people go hungry in our city.”
Read More: Join Our Prayer Challenge to End World Hunger
My father also knows that praying for the needy is instrumental to the work that he and the other ministries carry out. He integrates prayer and action. These are his tools for spreading love in our world. He understands that living out the gospel and meeting today’s challenges such as hunger, poverty, polluted water and others, can’t be done without prayer.
No problem, personal or global, can be resolved without the help of the Lord. Psalm 146: 5 and 7 says, “How blessed and graciously favored is he whose help is the God of Jacob (Israel), whose hope is in the Lord his God… Who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets free the prisoners.”
Prayer is one of the ways that we can all participate in asking God to provide for the needy. Most often when we take up an issue in our daily prayer, it leads to compassion and action. Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread…” we are reminded how our basic needs are met through the power of God’s provision.
Please click here and join us as we partner with Bread for the World in a prayer challenge to end hunger.
Lord, let us be mindful of those in need of their daily bread. Teach us to pray and provide for those less fortunate than us.
