Peace Quotes

Here are a few quotes I read in Seeking Peace (Johann Christoph Arnold) while donating plasma this afternoon:

"For what else is peace with God, if not readiness to meet him? If peace is readiness, it must mean readiness in every aspect of our lives: readiness to forgive the unforgivable; to remember when we would sooner forget, to forget when we would rather remember. It means readiness to love when we have hated; to go where we would rather not go, and to wait if we have been forgotten; to look forward, not back; to draw a line under the past and turn toward the light. It means readiness to give everything and to lay down our life for our brother" (p. 161).

"Whenever we feel the urge to take on God's work, it is a sign that we have lost trust in him, and forgotten that he is in control. It doesn't matter whether it is something in our personal or family life, something we hear on the news, something we experience in our work. If we try to solve everything ourselves, we become restless, discouraged, flustered, anxious. We lose the peace of God" (Marlene Bowman, p. 164).

"For us who live in a time when our efforts for peace cost us very little, the Anabaptists have much to teach us. Like them, we must come to see that it is not important how effective or successful we are, but whether we carry out our tasks with an attitude of faith" (p. 166).

"We know that by ourselves we cannot change the world. But Christ will, and we want to give ourselves voluntarily to him. He demands our whole personality and our whole life. He came to save the world, and we believe that he, not any human leader, will one day govern the earth. For him we live, and for him we are willing to die. That is all that is asked of anyone. Jesus does not expect perfection, but he expects us to serve him wholeheartedly" (Eberhard Arnold, p. 166).