GETTING THERE FROM HERE
One of the really neat things I remember as a young boy filled with dreams of Cincinnati Reds baseball was that a road we traveled often, US Rt. 52 could if you traveled it long enough take you right to the front door of the Big Red Machine! If you traveled east for a hundred miles or so, “seemed like an eternity to me then” you could get there right from here. It was Amazing to me a t the time. This road that I traveled on often could take me right to the Mecca of my childhood dreams….. Riverfront stadium.
Another local thoroughfare that could take you places was the Ohio Erie Canal. Now this does go back a little further than my recollection. I have read that as early as 1787, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had discussed the desirability of a canal linking Lake Erie to the Ohio River as part of a national system of canals. Wikapedia tells me that The Ohio Canal or Ohio and Erie Canal was a canal constructed in the early 1800s, which connected Akron, Summit County with the Cuyahoga River near the Cuyahoga's mouth on Lake Erie in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, and a few years later, with the Ohio River near Portsmouth, Tuscarawas County, and then connections to other canal systems in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The entire canal system was 308 miles (496 km) long with 146 lift locks and a rise of 1,206 feet. After the peak of the 1850s and a bottoming out of revenue due to the Civil War in the early 1860s the canals expenditures starting to outgrow its revenues due to rising maintenance costs. By 1911, most of the southern portion of the canal had been abandoned. The canal carried freight traffic from 1827 to 1861, and then freight traffic rapidly diminished due to the construction of railroads. From 1862 to 1913, the canal served as a water source to industries and towns. In 1913, much of the canal system was abandoned after critical sections were destroyed by severe flooding. During it’s construction workers were initially paid $0.30 per day and offered a jigger of whiskey. As work progressed, and where labor was in shortage, workers could make as much as $15 per month. At that time, cash money was hard to come by in Ohio forcing much bartering. Working on the canal was appealing and attracted many farmers from their land. So get this. This canal, which I drive by daily, which is but a few mere minutes from my house could take a person to Lake Erie and points beyond! You betcha and at a whopping three miles per hour to boot! (Pictured below is a chart of the canal along with some old pictures I have collected, also a few of a lock that is still in Rushtown just a few minutes from my house.) OK, so there’s your history lesson for the day class, now to my thought. Getting from Scioto county to Cincinnati was fascinating to a young American boys mind. Getting to Lake Erie from southern Ohio was astounding to a farmer in the 1800’s but even more incredible getting to Heaven from right here in McDermott is and always has been available! You can get there from here! From anywhere for that matter. Why I know of a young lady who became a Christ follower in a Wal Mart parking lot in Huntington West Virginia, proving just what the church marquee said, “Wal Mart isn’t the only saving place.!” I have heard of folks choosing to follow Christ while hunting in the woods, fishing on a boat even, yes even playing golf on a golf course. Listen to the prophet Jeremiah “Ye shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the LORD:” Now quickly hear Jesus words from Matthews gospel, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” It’s interesting to me that in regard to getting to heaven, it’s not so much about the destination, it’s really important how and from where we get started. Did you hear both scriptures talk about the heart and how it directly ties to where we are going? Finding God starts with searching with the whole heart. Treasures in heaven are directly related to what the love of the heart is. So it begs the question I suppose, what are you seeking with all your heart? Or better yet, where is your treasure? Our focus at the starting point of our search really will determine our destination.
Joseph Stowell writes “Heart is used in Scripture as the most comprehensive term for the authentic person. It is the part of our being where we desire, deliberate, and decide. It has been described as "the place of conscious and decisive spiritual activity," "the comprehensive term for a person as a whole; his feelings, desires, passions, thought, understanding and will," and "the center of a person. The place to which God turns." When God turns and looks at your life, in what direction does he see you headed? You see it’s true; you can get there from here! If you really want to!




































