A New Day

By: Pastor Johnie Akers     

Galatians 6:9, “And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season, we shall reap, if we faint not.”  By the time she was 18, Romana Acosta Banuelos had been deserted by her husband and left to raise her two children alone.  The daughter of poverty-stricken Mexican Americans, she was untrained in any profession and unable to speak English.  But that didn’t stop her. She had a dream—one she refused to let go of. With only a few dollars in her pocket she headed for Los Angeles, where she used her last seven dollars to take a taxi to the home of a distant relative.  Romana refused to live on the charity of others.  Immediately she found a job washing dishes, followed by a second job making tortillas from midnight until 6 a.m. From her two jobs she was able to save $500, which she used to invest in her own tortilla machine. Over time, and with a great deal of hard work and study, she became the owner of Ramona’s Mexican Food Products, which shipped food products throughout the world. She ultimately became a multi-millionaire.  Furthermore, she was hand-picked by President Nixon to become the first Mexican Americanwoman United States Treasurer.  Romana exemplified what Eisenhower had to say about dreams and discipline propelling one into the future: “We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective.”  Our Scripture lesson today focuses on an immutable principle in the kingdom of God—if we persevere in doing good, as sure as a farmer can expect a harvest after he sows, so we too, in our due season, can likewise expect a harvest.  Whatever you are investing your energies and resources in today, whether it is a new business, your education, an outreach ministry, or other quality initiative, God has promised that if we will remain diligent and not give up, we will realize the fruits of our labor.  As with Romana, the nights may be long, and the work hard, but the harvest in return for those efforts will be sweet, as you achieve your singular overriding objective for each new day.