Our efforts always belong to God’s work, even when it is only to keep the manger prepared in which the Child wants to lie. Our deeds count, even when like Simeon we only stretch out our arms in patience and faith and in loyal endurance so that we may receive the holy gift. Even when we only wait, poor and yearning in the darkness, in fervent longing – we are ready and may help to bring about the fullness of time.

- Eberhard Arnold

Because of the noise and activity of the struggle and the work, we often do not hear the hidden gentle sound and movement of the life that is coming into being. But here and there, at hours that are blessed, God lets us feel how he is everywhere at work and how his cause is growing and moving forward. The time is being fulfilled and the light shall shine, perhaps just when it seems that the darkness is impenetrable.

- Eberhard Arnold

We work until we are weary to the bone and yet see so little fruit. Does everything remain as it was? Haven’t we made any progress? Have we actually helped at all, or have we merely scratched the surface of things? Is there any trace or glimpse of the goal we long for? What do all our efforts amount to in the face of all the forces of misery and evil in the world? Left before such agonizing questions, it is good to remember the light that shines from the stable of Bethlehem, for it is here we are able to sense what it means that the kingdom of God came as a little child.

- Eberhard Arnold