The 610 Loop

The 610 Loop

12/22/18

Some people may think by continually avoiding the innermost sanctions of our hearts that many pains and difficulties can be avoided, and while this may be a partially correct statement one can never say for sure that avoidance is always the correct path to take.  An examination of the heart on a routine occasion is of great importance for even though the outside shell may look fine, the underlying time bomb may be reaching close to zero.  It is this concept of searching our spiritual hearts that God wants access to, Jesus stands at the door of the heart and knocks, not standing outside on the sidewalk waiting for us to notice Him standing there.  While our downtown access routes may not be popular to take, they must be accessed in order to continue knowing what is going on within our function zone and the only one that can give us a true and faithful assessment of our inner area is God.  It is time we allow and to take joy in the truth that God wants to drive downtown and to check out the buildings as it were, for why wouldn’t He, He was the one that created it in the first place and this author or designer (God) loves to look at His masterpieces in action.

Some of the inventions that mankind come up with make us scratch our heads and wonder why, while other ingenuities seem like the most brilliant idea that has been displayed since sliced bread.  One of the more dynamic purposes of democracy is finding out new ways to make everyone’s lives easier and to publicly display these comfort measures in such a way that all citizens have access to such giving.  When I was a young boy I really had no concept of what it meant to live in a big city, for I did not travel outside my little neighborhood that much and at other times the places that my parents pastured were in small towns so the big city life was not a worry.  But things changed when I moved to Cleveland, Texas in 1980 and even though it was a small community Houston was just thirty miles down the road and an entire other world existed.  Houston was my first mega-city to be a part of and a city that still captivates my mind every time I see it or hear it in the news for it brings back so many memories that I had during those four years of my young life.

Most of the time when we ventured into Houston we had other destinations that did not involve the 601 loop which was the so-called savior of the city because it was designed to keep many from entering and crossing downtown an understandable goal for the population of Houston was estimated of a growth of about 1,000 families per week for a period of time.  This is an insane amount of people being introduced into the city and surrounding areas, and to be honest, Houston has really never recovered from this boom way back from this time and are still in the process of catching itself up.  The 610 loop was built for this reason in mind and for the most part while Houston was still not the enormous conglomeration that it is today, the loop was perfectly suited for what it was designed to accommodate.  However, it was not long until it became a nightmare to drive because so many people were trying to avoid the downtown area that the traffic and congestion were phenomenal.  But not in the manner one would think, for even though there were times of strict congestion and slowing of traffic the majority of the time this piece of roadwork was a racetrack.  The 610 loop soon became a common trek and one that people used because it was faster in many ways to use to get into the downtown area instead of following the direct roads to the city center.  I know that seems like an unusual thing to say but it is one that is the truth and should be noted as such.  The 601 loop was just that an entire loop around the old outskirts of Houston and when the final bridge was completed over the Houston Ship Channel in the 1970s the loop was complete and full service was available to anyone who needed it.

A short while ago I scrolled through one of our newer road atlas journals, I found that almost every major city within the United States has at least one loop around its city centers to keep the flow of traffic and congestion away and out of the downtown area.  I cannot say that every loop present around every city has a majority of the services needed for human survival but I do know that when one drives the 610 racetrack and survives it, each exit has almost every convenience store grocery store or gas station available to the people arriving.  Virtually no need to venture into the downtown area is warranted and thus provides the assurance that the majority of the city population stays out of the heart of the city.  The theory of this evacuation plan is one that presents as a masterstroke but does it really help the cause of a city or does it hinder the population from understanding the ins and outs of what occurs and why things occur that come from this heart?  At first glance it would seem like a great benefit to not be forced to cross boundaries unless need be, but how can we understand what is truly going on in our city if we do not visit the heart of that city on a regular basis or even address its existence.

Diverting around a control center of a city does have consequences for when one does operate in such a way it continually starves the people who participate in such activities and eventually they shall lose all contact and authority over their own city centers, thus rendering themselves as robots to a system that needs to be nurtured.  When one does not visit the heart of anything for quite some time they automatically give up any authority it has over its function and thus functionally cannot manufacture any adequate response to a life decision.  The loops serve as a racetrack around the heart so that one does not have to witness or to deal with the innermost sanctions of what gives us the ability to drive around the city in the first place. 

The loops around our personal hearts serve as the exact same thing they keep us from examining and using what our heart has to offer.  We reference our heart on occasion and use its place setting as a contender for our emotions and desires but really do not take it into consideration when it comes time to make important elections in our lives.  We use the fast-paced and popular loops in order to arrive at everything we believe we want in life and do not consult the one entity that we need in order to survive.  As we drive around and around our eyes cannot help but notice the skyline of our heart’s downtown but quickly have to turn away for if we take our lives off of the fast-paced road our lives will take a horrific turn where no one will benefit.  The question can be raised about how many things we miss and the value of those things to our lives when we do not consult our hearts.  We readily forget that this speedy lifestyle running around yet not coming into contact with our hearts is the exact type of lifestyle our enemy wants from our lives, for when we do not have any contact with the control center of our lives then whoever comes into contact with that control center has the opportunity to direct what flows from that center into the loops, frontage roads, exits, and other major city arteries that lead into the city.

Many people have read the passage that God wants us to restudy today, and that passage is a single verse in that of Revelation 3:20 where it says that God stands at the door of our heart and knocks and whoever answers that knock God will come in and dwell within and eat with them.  What a wonderful gift it is to know that God and His Son want to join your heart and to supply you with all the necessary food that one needs to survive and to have eternal life.  But if we are busy running around not paying attention to what the condition of ours is or not even paying attention to our hearts period, it will be impossible for us to answer or to even hear the knocking on our heart’s door.  I can guarantee you that our enemy who we have allowed into our hearts knows who knocks on our door, but he shall never answer it and he will only cause the speed of that loop to increase and the noise surrounding you to become louder.  When one tries to keep pace with their surroundings and the things that occupy their minds they cannot help but ignore what the heart is saying to them.  This is proven in the physical by the occurrence of so many coronaries that this society produces each year, I can attest to such an event.  It is vital that we pay attention and to attend to our hearts on a regular basis and this attentiveness applies to our spiritual hearts as well.

One cannot deny that our churches have filled their walls with worldly standards in the name of God and have basically shut out the Divine Truth of what God and Jesus defined our lives and mission to be.  The schedules of the Church have been overrun with the world and the true intention of the Church is now being ignored.  See the Church was set up and put into motion by Jesus so that one can be separate from the hectic schedules that the world demands, there is no rest in the world for it is in constant chaos and with this state as its foundation, it cannot even properly know what peace and rest are.  The world represents the loops around city centers and as the city grows it is forced to build more loops just as Houston has done.  Now, there are at least two other “loops” around the circumference of Houston each one being developed further out in distance from the city center with all of the supposed conveniences around so one does not have to go further into the city.  Beltway 8 is the name of the next loop that was in development and now completed in Houston, which is further out and with this beltway, there is no need for everyone having to crowd up the 610 Loop any longer.  A layered effect is now in place which increases the distance from the heart of the city, rendering the heart as a directive of necessity but not required for any type of communication or maintenance, the perfect target for any enemy whether it be on the physical or spiritual level.

The Church has incorporated this type of transit system from our pulpits in order to attract crowds and to initiate and develop a kind of status within their communities.  The majority of the messages of today are based around a feel-good setting and one of unconditional acceptance and tolerance of the world instead of unconditional surrender of our hearts to God because of the recognition of sin that dwells within our hearts.  We are so far out from our hearts we no longer can hear Jesus standing at the door of our hearts knocking on it trying His best to give us the needed help we so desperately are driving around searching for.  Our minds have been so filled with worldly gasps that when we feel the gentle knocking of Jesus we instinctively push on the gas pedal and speed up our pace in order to find an answer by ourselves.  When Lutheran pastors offer to take young girls’ purity rings from them and melt them down into a vagina statue, Catholic priests who stand up for abortion on demand and without apology, and many other examples of worldly acceptance plans into the walls of the Church heart it cannot be surprising that things are not in good standing with God yet in perfect harmony with the world.

It is clear that the Church has followed the exact same pattern that countless individuals and many cities across this nation have done in building layer after layer of loops around the heart in order to disengage with what gives us life in the first place.  And in taking such action have nullified any chances of us hearing what God has to say about our lives and thus proving to ourselves that we do not need God and that everything is fine and dandy.  How can we have any chance of eternal survival if we have officially closed off the access roads to our hearts?  How can we really obtain the life-giving knowledge and wisdom to fight off our enemy especially when we cannot even see that he is controlling what our heart puts out?  Allowing God to stand at the door of your heart and in turn not allowing Him any access into your heart yet believing that you have a relationship with Him as He stands and waits, is a lie to your own existence and purpose and it is no wonder we have so many people ending their lives on a regular basis, for they hear the truth right outside their heart but cannot reach it because of the circular distance that they inhabit.

Our lives have been rutted in the speed lanes of the 610 loops in our lives so long that we cannot even take the exits that we need to fill up our bodies’ tanks with gas any longer.  And while our fuel tanks continue to bleed dry, we search and search for an answer while continuing to drive along this glitzy and glamorous way all the while missing out from what is the most important detail of a city, the heart of that city.  There is a reason why the downtown area is referred to as the center for it is where that city began and where all the veins and arteries that supply the city originate so it makes the perfect analogy of this passage for it is not the loops and beltways that Jesus is interested in, it is the heart in which His Father gave us and created in our innermost portions, our center of life and function.  The world will do its best to persuade you to leave the city center alone and allow it to decay and become obsolete, but in truth, the center is just that the center of everything.

How are we doing on this issue Church?  What is our drive time into our hearts or can we even determine such a frame?  When one takes a closer look at what makes our lives tick, it will become easy to figure out who lives within your heart and which kingdom one serves.  Revelation 3:20 gives us a picture of Jesus standing at the door of our hearts gently knocking and patiently waiting for a response.  He is not depicted as one with a clenched fist banging on the door in such a manner that would portray a demanding figure forcing someone else to open the door; however, the world would portray this type of action for it is the only way of grabbing one’s attention it knows, so goes the manner of this verse.  So, God asks us again, how are we doing on this topic and verse and where are our motives when witnessing to others?  Do we yell and protest those against us and scream and cry when they do not change their hearts?  Or are our examples to the world just another worldly gathering for worldly presentations and regulations?  How many demonstrations have you witnessed that are extremely calm and timid?

It is time that we end our circular loop fund and begin to take the trip to the center of our hearts again.  This is where the most damage the world and our enemy can do and if we do not take care of it properly it shall become blackened and the dark of night even though our outer surroundings look pristine and as long as we continue to live out in the loop areas we cannot hear Jesus knocking at our heart’s door.  What kind of witness does this make us and how does this type of worldly and speedy-like lifestyle seem attractive to those who are desperately looking to leave the loop?  Church, we have missed this truth about this verse and how important it is that we are home when Jesus knocks on the door of our heart, for if we the Church are not listening properly or even home, then there is no way possible that we can witness to those who do not know God, which in reality means we are a part of this crowd.  Let’s repent now Church while we still have an opportunity to turn this nation around and complete the work that Jesus wants us to do.  The world shall never construct its system that ultimately leads to the heart of your life it can only feed you in circles or in ways that will lead you further away from your heart, so why are we participating in such manner?

DLB