I was raised in Jefferson, a small town in Northeast Georgia. Even though it was a Jefferson address, our house and farm were outside the city limits. I always tell folks I lived on the outskirts of Jefferson. It seems to have a good ring to it. I love the town I am from and everything about it. The name, our school mascot, the Dragons, and those beautiful red and blue colors. I take pride in where I’m from.

In 2019 I moved away from Jefferson and lived in Lavonia, Georgia, for a couple of years, and a few months after I got married, my wife and I moved a little closer to the mountains to Mount Airy, Georgia. All three of these houses hold a special place in my heart. Each house is significant and, in an odd way, represents different stages of my life, with good and bad memories poured into the walls and crevices of each, forever leaving their mark. Still, there is no place like Jefferson.

Yet even in my hometown of Jefferson, I was confronted with trials. I ran into problems no matter where I lived, and I realized that I couldn’t run from trouble. There is no place on this earth that is trouble-free. No matter how many times we might move to another location, eventually, we face hard times.

C.S.Lewis once said

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

I pondered those words for some time after I read them. I said to myself, “but God created this world, and He created us for this world,” but that’s only half true. God is the creator, but He didn’t create this world. He made a better world that was perfect. Then sin entered in, and out of sin, we created the world we live in now. One may ask, “If God didn’t intend the world to be the way it is now, why did He allow it?”

Because when He created us, He created us in His image and likeness. Since we are created in His image, He also gave us the freedom to make choices and the ability to make choices; we must have something to choose from. There was only one thing for humanity to choose, and it was either obey or disobey God. We all know which one man chose. When Adam and Eve sinned, they freely chose to disobey God, which gave birth to sin and the corruption of this world.

Yet, with corruption came redemption. Jesus, God the Son, came into this evil world, paid the sin debt that we were under by freely giving His sinless life for us, and three days later, He was resurrected from the dead. After that, He returned to God the Father but not without promising that He would return one day and that when He does, He will make all things new. He will create a new world we truly belong in if we choose to have a personal relationship with Jesus. That world will be without pain, sorrow, tears, and even death. It will fulfill every deep longing we have in our being because the Lord Jesus will be there. He is the only one that fulfills the eternal void that is in us all. Jesus is our home