The Homing Device
“Fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te.” (“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”)
Were St. Augustine writing this thought for a modern audience, he might say, “All believers possess an infallible homing device that takes them from this world and back to God.”
Augustine’s observation is in fact a personal commentary on our Lord’s teaching: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:27-29).
I believe that underestimating the range, power, and subtlety of this device is perhaps the greatest single error we commit in our own attempts to “make Christians.” We do not make God’s sheep: they are brought to us (“and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved”; Acts 2:47), and the only way to seek them is to transmit unencumbered the Voice of the Shepherd, which they will infallibly hear.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on Christianity from the online archives
32.4—July/August 2019
on Probability, Death & the Existence of God by Graeme Hunter
more from the online archives
23.5—September/October 2010
The Loss of a Christian Understanding of Virginity Is Pure Tragedy by Eleanor Bourg Donlon
32.2—March/April 2019
on Properly Rendering Things to Caesar & to God by Peter J. Leithart
27.2—March/April 2014
Higher Education Should Advance the Glorious Liberty of the Sons of God by Anthony Esolen
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
