The gatekeepers

Where there are locks that might be opened, there may also be gatekeepers, and it so happens that there are, as evidenced by the description of the seven churches in the Revelation:

• obsession and renunciation keep us from prayer,
• suppression and addiction keep us from partaking in God's initiatives and
• commitment keeps us from accepting God's wishes.

Obsession and renunciation are the fruits of Hegelian dialectic: obsession with making points and winning arguments (Ephesus) and renunciation of orthodoxy by the general admission of antitheses (Thyatira).

Suppression is brought about by professionalism (Smyrna) and addiction by hypes, which eventually leave us desensitised and exhausted (Sardis).

Commitment as the fruit of bigotry in the original sense, i.e. double standards, seeing only the good in one's ways, but not the bad, whereas with others it's the other way round, is full of demands that can't be satisfied by what God wishes for. It creates a fire driving to outrage (Pergamos).

These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;

Well, we shall see. At least the locked gates and their keepers have come into sight. (Philadelphia's gate is open, because the generous deed that God wishes for cannot be slandered.)