Embraced by Faith: Reflections on Faith in God from the Bible and Beyond

By Vladimir Berzonsky

Faith is a lifelong challenge, and it can be something precarious. Even Jesus Christ asked God, Why has thou forsaken me? So what is faith? Is it simply a belief in the unseen God, or is there more? For Christian believers who have been embraced by the Holy Spirit and given the gift of faith, we will be measured by a lifelong struggle to hold fast to faith even though we will be confronted by challenges and frustrations.

In Embraced by Faith, author and pastor Vladimir Berzonsky shares his inspired reflections on faith from the Bible and beyond, revealing how God gives us love to guide us to the truth and a relationship with himall through faith. Embraced by Faith explores both Old and New Testament scriptures, showing how we can have communion with God and be led to overcome every obstacle on the path to the kingdom of heaven.

Faith is the belief that God can do all thingsand that he is unconditional love. It is also the belief that his love is revealed and expressed in Jesus Christ. Regardless of what happens to us in our lifetimes, a true faith will help us overcome and prevail over all trialseven in the most extreme example, the suffering of Jesus on the cross. To feel abandoned and yet embraced by the Holy Spirit, we can bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things (1 Corinthians 13:7).

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973613978

Vladimir Berzonsky

Vladimir Berzonsky has served the Orthodox Church in America as a pastor and as an author for the Department of External Affairs, traveling to the USSR with other representatives of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. He has presented papers abroad and was a delegate to the Faith and Order Commission conference of the World Council of Churches at the joint ROC-NCCC meeting in Moscow (1963), and today he offers courses on religion at several colleges and universities in the greater Cleveland, Ohio, area. The Very Reverend Berzonsky is also the author of Orthodox and Evangelicals: Can They Unite? (Zondervan Press) and Gift of Love (St. Vladimir Press).

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-1396-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-1398-5 (hc)

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017919259

WestBow Press rev. dat e: 01/03/2018

CONTENTS

Old Testament

Genesis 5:22–One Who Walked With God

Genesis 22:1–The Supreme Sacrifice

Genesis 32:9–My Father’s Faith

Genesis 35:1, 3– The Altar Within

Exodus 2:14– Moses and Luke Skywalker

Exodus 3:2– The Lesson of the Burning Bush

Exodus 3:21–22– For the Glory of the True God

Exodus 5:22– Development through Prayer

Exodus 31:14– Slaves of Freedom

Jeremiah 5:7– Lost on the Way to the Kingdom

Deuteronomy 5:6– The Essential Truth

2 Samuel 12:7, 9– Giving Voice to Sorrow

2 Chronicles 2:9– The Church That Never Was

John 5:30– Aspects of the Human Will

1 Kings 12:6– The Wisdom That Comes with Age

Job 38:1, 18, 33– Communicating with Extra-Human Life

Job 40:1– Who Dares Correct God?

Job 42:1– The Mystery of the Trinity

Psalm 23:4– Our Source of Comfort

Psalm 24:1– Attachment to Earth

Psalm 37:1– The Nichevo Approach to Life

Psalm 52:8– The Green Olive Tree

Psalm 55:22– Let Go, Let God

Psalm 57:7– The Ready Heart

Psalm 62:1– The Rock of Salvation

Psalm 65:9, 11– A Time for Hope

Psalm 91:5–The American Christian Confronts Terrorism

Psalm 91:9– Death: The Test of Faith

Proverbs 3:5– Trust in the Lord

Proverbs 20:1, 3– A Reason for Belief

Proverbs 27:11– Be Wise, My Child

Ecclesiastes 2:10– First Steps to Salvation

Ecclesiastes 3:10– Eternity in the Heart

Isaiah 55:6– Seek the Lord While You Can

Isaiah 53:3– Why Do They Defile My Lord?

Lamentations 3:49– Conquering Despair

Habakkuk 2:2– The Vision Thing

New Testament

Matthew 5:1– Ascending the Mountain

Matthew 5:36– How to Say No

Matthew 6:22–The Eye of Light

Matthew 6:25, 33– The Key to Happiness

Matthew 6:26, 28– To See with the Eye of a Child

Matthew 6:27– Nature’s Secret

Matthew 6:28– Celebrating God’s World

Matthew 7:7– Christ’s Three Promises

Matthew 7:7– Do You Know What You Want?

Matthew 9:20–22– As You Wish

Matthew 10:30– Nothing About Life Is Accidental

Matthew 12:30–Commitment

Matthew 16:25–Symbols on Chains

Matthew 17:15–Stages of Spiritual Growth

Matthew 17:20–Mustard Seed Faith

Matthew 17:20–Leveling Mountains

Matthew 19:17, 20–22–The Learned and the Learners

Matthew 24:13–An Example of Endurance

Matthew 25:31–46–The Awesome Separation

Matthew 27:46–Forsaken Feeling

Mark 3:27–Satan and the Strong Man

Mark 7:28–Crumbs from the Table

Mark 16:6–Truly He Is Risen!

Luke 6:39–Did Jesus Have a Sense of Humor

Luke 6:46– Prayer and Contemplation

Luke 9:26–Christ, Shame, and Glory

Luke 10:34–Degrees of Affection

Luke 10:40–The Best Part

Luke 10:41–Faith of Our Fathers—More or Less

Luke 11:21–Strong Men

Luke 11:27–A Woman in the Crowd

Luke 11:27–A Silent Majority

Luke 12:4–Satan Never Learns

Luke 18:8–A Heresy of Time

Luke 22:31–To Live by Faith Alone

Luke 22:31–After You Fail, He’s Still There

Luke 22:54–A Safe Distance

Luke 22:62–The Measure of Loyalty

John 1:1–4, 14–The Word of God

John 1:14–We Beheld His Glory

John 1:46, 48, 50–The Glorious Invitation

John 6:15–Regime Change

John 8:32–Disciples of Freedom

John 10:36–Be What God Made You to Be

John 10:3–5–The Shepherd’s Voice

John 10:16–Witnessing within New Christian Alliances

John 12:35–When the Light Goes Out

John 13:26–Alone in a Group with Jesus

John 14:9–Jesus Christ, Icon of the Father

John 16:23–The Face in the Dream

John 18:17–What about You?

John 19:38–39– Missed Opportunities

John 20:3 –The Extrovert and the Introvert

John 20:8–Seeing and Believing

John 20:15–Why Are You Weeping? Christ Is Risen.

John 20:27– Saint Thomas the Confessor

John 20:16–Christ’s Father: Our Father

John 21:20–Following the Lamb

John 21:20–Ways of Relating to the Lord

John 1:14; 21:24–25–The Word of God

Acts 3:3–Faith Is Not for Sale

Acts 9:3–6–A Peasant Woman’s Faith

Acts 14:8–10–Releasing Faith

Acts 17:18–God’s Will and Wisdom

Romans 2:19 –Self-Evaluation

Rom 7:14–15–The Sin against Hope

Romans 9:3–The Lost Generation

Romans 12:1–Living Sacrifices

Romans 13:13–Bearing Witness to the Gospel

1 Corinthians 15:12–Proof of Christ’s Resurrection

2 Corinthians 1:19–The Ultimate Yes

2 Corinthians 5:6–We Live by Faith

Galatians 2:11–One Faith, Two Expressions

Galatians 2:16–Limits of the Law

Galatians 2:20–Christ Alive in Us

Galatians 2:20–The Measure of Sincerity

Philippians 3:10–Saint Paul’s Passion

Philippians 4:13–A Faith for Optimists

2 Thessalonians 1:3–Challenged by a Blessing

1 Thessalonians 4:13–Grief and Hope

2 Timothy 3:1–2, 5–The New Heresy

Titus 2:11–The World, the Flesh, and the Devil

Hebrews 1:1, 3–The Superiority of Christ

Hebrews 5:12–14– The Mature Believer

Hebrews 6:1–3–Maturing in Christian Faith

Hebrews 11:8–10–Homeland of Promise

Hebrews 11:32–Faith Examples That Sustain Us

Hebrews 13:7–Honest to God

1 Peter 1:3–5–Living Hope

1 Peter 3:15–Knowing about Christ and Knowing Christ

2 Peter 1:3–4 –The True Believing Christian and the Heretic

1 John 5:1, 4–Christian Optimism

Revelation 2:13–Happiness Pods

Revelation 3:20–Letting the Lord into Your Life

Revelation 7:9–Personality and Sanctity

Revelation 7:17–A Reason for Living

Revelation 10:8–Always Our Decision

Revelation 21:8–Media Bias

Non-scriptural

Peak Week of Spiritual Potential

Learning to Be Faithful

God’s Glorious Light

The New Heres

The Glorious Invitation

Who Is God? Who Is Christ? Who Am I?

To Live by Hope

At Every Age, Jesus

No Greater Act

The Privilege of Praying the Lord’s Prayer

Wisdom and Attention

All Earthly Cares

Eternal Life

The Pursuit of Happiness

For Anna, Margarita, and Janene

OLD TESTAMENT

ONE WHO WALKED WITH GOD

Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God, then he was no more, because God took him away.

—Genesis 5:22

He walked with God. What a glorious epitaph. However, there was no tombstone for Enoch because, like Elijah, he was of an elite company who was translated into God’s kingdom.

Twice it’s mentioned that he walked with God. That’s how he was known on earth, and that is his legacy. Many are the ways we catalogue people, but none is more fascinating than those who believe and those who don’t believe in God. And even among the believers, there are so many who struggle with their faith, spending most of their lives in the gray area of partial trust and moderate commitment to God’s will for their lives. They’re like would-be swimmers who are not quite sure the water will support them.

Then there are those like Enoch who are more certain of God’s presence than their own existence. I know a young woman who told me that she knew God was near her just as she trusted that water would pour from the spigot when she turned the tap—even more so because the sink sometimes failed to function, but God never fails.

Walking implies progress. Having lived as many years as there are days in a year, Enoch evidently changed in that time. So much must have transpired from his toddler years to his dodder years to make him rethink his relationship with the Lord. Spiritual progress means that we are always challenging our faith and measuring our lives against the perfection of the Lord. As Jesus commanded: Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).

Enoch must have wanted to keep up with God. To stay in step, he had to move along. Obviously, we don’t mean it literally. Just notice how our contemporary men and women place such an emphasis on physical prowess. They must realize that our bodies peak in the early twenties. Legs give out soon afterward, eyesight abates, and another group of eager youngsters soon take the trophies, gold medals, and applause from the ones in their thirties.

Spiritual progress has nothing to do with physical prowess. Conversely, as we become older and weaker, more dependent and less robust, we are more capable of developing our awareness of God’s constant care for our souls. Even though we have not been blessed with the gift of Enoch, the instinct to sense that God was always there. He is an ever-present companion—awake or asleep, at work or at rest. It is possible for us to come to a God awareness later on, when our bodies have begun to fail us and after we realize that we are no longer at the peak of our natural development.

Another wonderful insight we can glean from Enoch’s fascinating habit of God awareness is that he had sons and daughters. He was a family man with all the joys and worries that that entailed. We praise our monastic men and women who give their entire lives to a constant walk with God. Yet here is the prototype of believers who devote themselves to standing in God’s presence and feeling His companionship at all times, while living a completely normal life as husband and parent.

THE SUPREME SACRIFICE

Sometime later God tested Abraham. He said to him, Abraham! Here I am, he replied. Then God said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.

—Genesis 22:1

If there is a writing in the Bible more difficult to comprehend than this, it can only be the resurrection of Jesus. Many questions form themselves: Why was God testing Abraham at this stage of his life? He was now an old man. He had proven his loyalty to the Lord on numerous occasions through his many years. Why this way of testing his faith?

Nothing on earth did he prize as much as Isaac. And God knew how long Sarah and Abraham had waited to have a child of their own. Besides, isn’t life itself the greatest blessing of the Lord? Wasn’t human sacrifice the most repugnant of the religious practices of their neighbors? How can it be that the good Lord would select this macabre loyalty test?

Note how the Lord removes Abraham’s objections in anticipating what they will be:

But he’s my only son, Abraham would plead.

I’m aware of that. It gives you the opportunity to make a total commitment. Besides, it was I who gave him to you.

But I love him more than anything on earth.

That makes the sacrifice all the more precious.

Some today would say that Abraham was too pious. One should use common sense in religious affairs. Is it necessary to respond to every demand of the Lord? A contemporary song has lyrics that are God is watching … from a distance. Wouldn’t Abraham be better off just knowing that God is watching without listening for His voice? Let Him stay at a distance; the average person might be pleased to keep Him there. It’s much safer. But not Abraham.

Pseudo-intellectuals would interpret this passage from a psychohistorical approach. They would say that Abraham is suffering from senility. His age has caught up with him. Maybe he’s measuring his own faith by that of the Canaanites who sacrificed their firstborn sons to their deities, and Abraham, not the Lord, is measuring his commitment to the Lord against theirs.

Setting aside the above, we must explore this story without explaining it away, for it means what it conveys. Here are significant truths for the serious believer to assimilate:

A. Faith cannot always be contained in the parameters of human reason. Abraham’s offering on Moriah is a prelude to the sacrifice of the Father on Calvary.

B. Life apart from the Lord is an illusion. Those who feel they can depend on the Lord without a total commitment are deluding themselves. To be a Christian is to be a saint in the making. All life is a test, proving to God and ourselves what we are really made of and what are our ultimate values.

C. Idols can be everywhere, and whatever or whomever we love more than the Lord Almighty can be a barrier to union with God. Only until Abraham was willing to give up Isaac did the Lord return the boy to him.

D. We are in danger of losing our souls even in our old age. The loyalty tests continue even on our deathbeds.

MY FATHER’S FAITH

Then Jacob prayed, O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives and I will make you prosper.’

—Genesis 32:9

Modern Americans require a double explanation to the passage above. Jacob is praying, and he addresses the Lord not merely as God, but God of my father Abraham, God of Isaac (i.e., God of my forefathers). He worships the ancestral deity; indeed, he finds security and truth in the continuity of the Lord’s presence through the generations.

Progress is a key element in an improved environment; therefore, what possibly can we learn from our parents? Has the world not changed since their generation? Are our problems resolved or obscured when we take into account the solutions they propose? Americans are constantly urged to depart from what is past and search for change, variety, and novelty. Every product labels itself as the very latest because consumers have been programmed to treat whatever is new as manifestly improved.

The musical Fiddler on the Roof sets forth this tragedy, which, of course, most Americans consider laughable. The simple milkman, Tevye, has three marriageable daughters. While Tevye contemplates their weddings as possibilities for enhancing his lot in life, in fact, each girl departs a step further from tradition. The first falls in love, disregarding her parent’s interests; the second marries a Gentile; the third weds a revolutionary and follows him to prison in Siberia. Times change.

Even in religion, a continual search goes on, not to replace Christianity necessarily but to find new forms of expression, innovative sects who can package the old-time religion in more attractive styles. Those who insist that the only true and lasting change is the transformation within one’s self are outmaneuvered by the more popular appeal, which is to change the circumstance and setting of faith. People in contemporary society don’t want to change; they expect conditions to improve.

The second problem craving an explanation is the phrase Go back. Americans are iconoclasts of the past. You Can’t Go Home Again is more than a renowned novel; it’s a truism. Young adults yearn to live on their own. They tolerate living with their parents only as an economic necessity, taking seriously the flip aphorism of Robert Frost: Home is where when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Jacob had been away for twenty years. He is a success in life, a wealthy man with a large family and vast possessions. Still, he cannot consider his life complete without returning to the land of his birth, reconciling himself to his brother, and living out his days in prayer to the God of his fathers.

As the eponymous patriarch of all Jews, his attachment to the land separates his progeny from Christians. After Jesus was considered unworthy of execution in the holy city of Jerusalem, the only true home for His followers is the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God (Revelation 21:2).

THE ALTAR WITHIN

Then God said to Jacob, Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau. So Jacob said, Let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who has answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.

—Genesis 35:1, 3

God’s command to Jacob has several elements: A. Go to Bethel; B. Settle there; C. Build there an altar.

Why Bethel? Because it was there that the ultimate experience of Jacob’s life took place. There he was in flight for his very life. Frightened, exhausted, having nothing in hand but his hiking stick, it was there he met God in an unforgettable encounter. He would always remember the events of that night—and the stairway to heaven which he had seen.

Such moments are spiritual gifts that nourish one’s soul for more than a lifetime. Saint Paul time and again recounted his encounter with Christ on the way to Damascus, when he was knocked to the ground and blinded (Acts 9).

Every disciple can describe some experience that turned about his or her whole life. They may be as vivid as Paul’s or as idyllic as a spring day’s reflection, but they all contain a meeting with what transcends ordinary experience.

I recall a rather ordinary parishioner who rarely attended services or took part in the active life of the church. Yet he had an unshakable faith in God. When I asked him the reason for his conviction, he described a traumatic childhood. His whole family lived in fear of the alcoholic father who would come home and flail away at his wife and children in a drunken rage. On one occasion, this man, then only eight years old, cringing in terror under the kitchen table, pleaded with God to stop his father who brandished a strap overhead. At that instant, the drunkard dropped to the floor and fell into a sound sleep. To the terrified lad, it was a true miracle.

The renowned German theologian, Rudolf Otto, wrote the classic study, The Idea of the Holy. In analyzing the meaning of divine acts within human experience, he began with a sensible requirement for his readers:

The reader is invited to direct his mind to a moment of deeply-felt religious experience … whoever cannot do this, whoever knows no such moments in his experience, is requested to read no farther.

To some, it might appear elitist. Is this really Christian? It’s interesting that those outside the church who remain proud unbelievers often claim to know all there is to learn about the gospel teachings. They will not hesitate to judge Christians by Bible standards. But Professor Otto is right. Why try to evaluate the various meetings between divinity and humanity to somebody who has yet to have an experience of the sacred? An astronomer would never try explaining the configurations of the galaxies to somebody who required convincing that order existed in the universe.

Jacob was more fortunate than most of us today. He was able to live near the site of his encounter with the Holy One. We can do the next best thing: we can take in our hearts the memory of an encounter with the Lord, a moment from our own earth journeys that is branded indelibly onto our souls.

MOSES AND LUKE SKYWALKER

Then Moses felt frightened. He said to himself, This incident is known. When Pharaoh learned of the incident he took steps to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and paused in the land of Midian, where he sat down by a well.

—Exodus 2:14

If we are to reach out to today’s young people with the Word of God, we must first find where they are, and a good place to begin is with their passions. Star Wars helps adolescents and other viewers identify with Luke Skywalker battling the forces of darkness and discovering that his greatest enemy, Darth Vader, is really his own father.

In the Bible, Moses is raised in the palace of Pharaoh, a foster father, from whom he is forced to flee, only to return years later, exposed as the leader of his own real people, the Hebrews. He is commanded by a greater power, the Almighty Lord, to lead his people from bondage in Egypt to a land promised by God. Both Moses and Luke had been raised and nurtured without their own fathers as primary role models—or at least those with whom they could readily identify. Those of us who are pastors or counselors to confused and troubled young persons often discover as a pattern their inability to bond with their fathers and identify with them as guides, mentors, and sources of inspiration.

Darth Vader and Pharaoh stand more as adversaries than mentors, much like Jack in the beanstalk fable whose father is the giant from whom he must steal the goose laying golden eggs. It is the mother and wily sister who concoct the scheme that help to keep Moses alive, albeit in an alien household. Luke too is on his own, with some help from the women in his life. Both are natural leaders, yet they cannot come of age until they confront and conquer their crafty and powerful, albeit evil, adult adversaries. They cannot do it alone, but they use prudent counsel from those older and more experienced. With Luke, it is Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda; with Moses, it is the Almighty Himself, later with his father-in-law Jethro. Transcendent powers, the energy from without that compensates for whatever is lacking in the leader, comes from some nebulous force in Luke’s case, and from the Holy Spirit who is everywhere present and filling all things, specifically the mind, soul, and body of Moses.

My purpose is not to equate the two stories, much less to give credence to what is essentially a comic strip fable—hardly the quality of classical fiction—but to point out the fundamental yearning in contemporary culture for the transcendent. We as humans are born with a burning drive for self-discovery. We can never be content living an animal existence, nourishing ourselves on the good things of life, indulging our minds and senses with pleasures of the world, and taking pleasure in such banality. That will not nourish our thirsty souls. We are obsessed with learning the answer to the biblical question: What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care about him: Yet You have made him a bit lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor (Psalm 8:4).

To find the answer, one must question and even challenge the truths and premises of the adult world, taking the risk of losing what one has in order to find and restructure one’s values as an adult. It presupposes the courage to leave the comfortable for a journey, an exodus, or a pilgrimage into the unknown. The great difference is that the Lord God constantly led Moses. We are not blessed with assuming the same scenario prevails in today’s world. Luke is, for those raised in a civilization where God is unknown or rejected, pretty much on his own. Moses knew that God had a destination in mind for him. For Luke, as with Jack, survival is its own reward.

THE LESSON OF THE BURNING BUSH

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up, so Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.

—Exodus 3:2

From our vantage point in time, we understand part of the reason why the bush was not consumed in the fire. We remember the glorious descent of the Holy Spirit, when what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated, came to rest on each of them (Acts 2:3). The world is filled with the dynamic presence of the living God. Moses was given a preview of coming attractions to those who are ready to receive the phenomena of the universe as the Lord had planned it. Moses, long after this episode, would appear along with Jesus to manifest the glorious radiance of the universe’s theophany on the mountain where Jesus was transfigured in the presence of three apostles (Matthew 17).

Could it have a more personal meaning to Moses? He was a man who was in one respect like the Christ who made a whip and cleansed the Temple, overturning the tables of the money changers and sellers of doves (Mark 11:15). Moses who couldn’t take the role of a bystander when an injustice was perpetrated upon another human being. That’s why he had to escape from Egypt initially; his righteous indignation so incensed him that he killed the overseer who was beating a Hebrew (Exodus 2:11). A fire raged in his heart that day, and there was fire in his heart many days later when he would return to the very mountain, Horeb, and realize that while he was there conversing with the Lord Almighty, receiving from Him the tables of Law that would secure the covenant relationship between God and His select people, those same Hebrews were at the base of the mountain, worshipping the deities of Egypt that the Lord insisted they leave behind (Exodus 32).

That fire of the heart cools and turns cold when anger leaves, and sadness takes its place. This is the rhythm of the human throughout his or her lifetime. The unconsumed bush was to be a source of meditation for Moses, an alternative to the cycle of anger, frustration, remorse, and despair that afflicts us all. The way of the Spirit opens the heart to consistency by rejecting all forms of anger and replacing them with a loving trust in the Lord’s plan for the world. And it doesn’t mean that the Lord desires us to accept fatalistically the errors of society, as though we had given up all hope of changing the minds and hearts of the people around us. On the contrary, only when we have achieved a measure of self-control will we be capable of influencing others in accepting the Lord’s plan for ourselves and all living things around us.

Just as the Holy Spirit would not permit the bush to be consumed by fire, so too will the same Spirit remain within hearts, burning with zeal for the heavenly Father, warmed by the love for His Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ, and alive for having united itself to the outpouring energy that is nothing less than the living God.

FOR THE GLORY OF THE TRUE GOD

And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for articles of clothing which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so, you will plunder the Egyptians.

—Exodus 3:21–22

The wise Moses counsels those about to depart from Egypt to take with them any articles of value that they might have use for in their journey into the wilderness. One might expect the opposite; that is, if they are to make a clean break from their past, why take along reminders of their former existence? Life is a continuity, and we gather impressions, building memory as we advance from one stage to the next. We can deny, suppress, or reject earlier experiences—or we can build upon them by putting them into perspective. We can utilize what was positive, reject the negative, and assimilate what is no longer viable but useful to the present situation, taking precautions against falling into the old ways and letting the past absorb the present. Moses chose the latter option.

Missionaries are made to choose between the above possibilities as they teach catechumens the