Letters from a Friend: Have-tos
Dear one,
From the distant reaches of time; long before you were conceived, begotten, my heart’s desire has been–you. In the counsels convened in eternal realms, our focus, our goal has been to win the hearts of mankind.
You were born for love, in love, and from love. You were made for love. Made for us. Created to be known and to know.
The enemy cannot defeat love. So, in great fury, he, too, convened a counsel to destroy it. And he crafted a tool called the “have-tos.”
How I grieve when I see his strategy working. To see my friends laboring to exhaustion under the weight of the “have-tos.” To see eyes diverted from the truth.
When your master is the “have-tos,” your steps turn ever so slightly from my side. The “musts” and the “shoulds” become your focus, pulling your gaze from my face. You begin to use them as the measure of your performance, the gauge of your accept-ability, and you forget that you’re already accepted, and loved.
Under the rule of this tyrant, you can never do enough. It will never be right enough or good enough or pure enough, and therein lies the torment. So I weep.
This is not what we’ve ever wanted. Friendship, adoption. That is our plan, and it’s the answer to all of the “have-tos.” The more you walk with me, the more you become like me. Slowly, slowly, you begin to think like me and act like me, and so you no longer “have to.”
It’s okay to relax, to just enjoy me. This is all that’s needed for today.
Signed,
A Friend