"Almighty God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you."

Those are the words at the start of a prayer that was said in our church on this past Sunday. It's a prayer we use every year at about this time, and I always look forward to it. The words are very old and are very special to me. I think they speak of an enormously important truth.

When I said that these words are old, I really meant it. They come from the first page of a book written 1600 years ago. It may not have hit Oprah's list, or the New York Bestseller list, yet down through those centuries it truly has been a best-seller. The book is St. Augustine's Confessions.

It is the story of his spiritual journey.

Augustine lived in a turbulent time, a time of decay and decadence. The Roman Empire was crumbling, its leaders too corrupt and licentious to do anything to save it.

And in that unstable time, people were searching for something to believe in. Sects, cults, heresies and pseudo-religions abounded. Does that sound anything like our world today?

Augustine was born to a pagan father and a devoutly Christian mother who saw that her son was raised in the faith. Once away from home, he did as many well protected young people did, and still do. He just had to taste all those hitherto forbidden fruits! But though his lifestyle would have broken his mother's heart, Augustine was not a total wastrel.

He was a true scholar, and studied all the great philosophers, and became himself a professor of philosophy in Milan where he lived with his mistress and his son Deodatus, a name which means, "Gift from God".

Into his life came Bishop Ambrose, a very saintly man. Augustine was drawn to him and his teaching, but fought against conversion. It would mean giving up too much.

As he tells us in The Confessions, his prayer at this time was, "Lord give me chastity and continence, only not yet!" He goes on to tell of his struggle, and his final giving in to the power of the Spirit whose overshadowing had kept him from finding true peace as he dabbled in various philosophies and heresies.

And so, in that splendid book, he began the story of his journey by telling us of its end, finding rest at last in God. "You made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

What St. Augustine found out for himself so long ago is true for all time, and for all people. I am utterly convinced that this divine restlessness is part of our human nature. It's built into us! The Quakers have a wonderful saying, "There is that of God in every person." Sometimes it's called the "divine spark", and I believe that it is just this that causes us to be restless, and to seek for wholeness, to seek for God.

When we are young, like Augustine, we try to satisfy our restlessness with fun and games of different kinds, often with partying and such diversions.

But nothing entirely satisfies. Ultimately we still face a kind of hunger, a kind of emptiness that nothing quite manages to fill, and so the quest goes on. Sadly, for some, the quest never ends. The restlessness goes on and on. There's a book by Rabbi Kushner that has a wonderful title, When All You Ever Wanted Isn't Enough. That sort of says it all. What is very sad is when we see people coming near the end of their lives, who seem to have everything, but are still restless, still looking for that something more, but unwilling to give in to the "Something More" , that one thing that will give them everything!

When I was a young student, many years ago, like so many students, I went through an agnostic period. I was wretched! I was not cut out to be an agnostic! A friend gave me a poem to read, The Hound of Heaven, by Francis Thompson.

The poet tells of his restless journey, fleeing from the "Hound", hiding in every way he could, in fun and partying, but always relentlessly followed. Like Augustine, his flight was because he feared that, "...having him, I might have naught beside".

When at last he can run no longer, he realizes that what he has tried so hard to escape is what he truly longed for.

"Halts by me that footfall. Is my gloom after all, shade of his hand outstretched caressingly?"

Lord you made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.

But rest in God doesn't mean passivity. Nor does it mean our lives will be endlessly quiet. We are called to serve God in a restless world, but with God's peace in our hearts, we can do just that!