SYMBOL OF OUR PROMISES by Robert Soto (Posted on an email from Words from the Creator)

SYMBOL OF OUR PROMISES
By Robert Soto
Posted on an email from Words from the Creator

November 14, 2009

Joshua 21:45 "Not one of all the LORD's good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled."

Apaches wore symbols around them to remind them of things they said or promised. They would wear things on them or around them to remind them of promises or oaths they had taken before the people and before God the Creator. When General Miles and Geronimo met and took an oath Geronimo said, "We raised our hands to heaven and said that the treaty was not to be broken." I'm not sure whose idea it was to raise their hands as a symbol of keeping their promise. Whether it was an Apache tradition or a symbol of General Miles' Christianity, I don't know. But I do know that symbols of peoples' promises have been given throughout history. Today we shake hands when we give a promise. We sign contracts or exchange gifts. Among some of our people a pipe was smoked as a symbol that a promise was meant to be kept. Regardless, with Geronimo that day, they raised their hands in the air as a symbol that all that was laid on the table that day was going to be kept by both parties.

The problem was the cultural difference between both. How do you deal with a people whose word was their word which was meant to be kept when you come from a people who would say and do whatever was needed to get what they wanted? Yet whether General Miles intended to keep his promises or not did not matter, because God the Creator had stated what we would call a God-given truth, that if God the Creator gave us an example of the keeping of a promise, He expected us to do the same. Joshua wrote the following about God. He said, "Not one of all the LORD's good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled." In the end the symbol of the promise is not as important as the fact that God the Creator will always keep His word. He has given us an example, so we need to do likewise.

Robert Soto, Lipan Apache and pastor of:

McAllen Grace Brethren Church
The Native American New Life Center
Chief of Chiefs Christian Church