Without God, my unloving heart can’t truly love unlovable people

By David McElroy · September 12, 2025

I don’t know how to love you — or anyone else.

Loving others has never come naturally to me. The people around me seemed stupid, irritating, foolish and irrational. They hurt me and angered me. But I kept reminding myself that Jesus taught me to love them anyway, even the ones I might consider enemies.

But I struggle with this more than I like to admit, because my selfish and unloving heart naturally wants to be angry and strike out at the people around me who frustrate me and leave me feeling as though there’s no hope for the human race.

And the failure of my unloving heart to love these people who seem so unlovable drives home a truth that I sometimes forget. Without the loving spirit who I know as God, it’s impossible for me to truly love anyone. Without God, I am incapable of moving beyond my selfishness, my unloving spirit and my foolish pride.

Left to myself, I don’t have the capacity for that kind of love. Without the powerful presence of God, I can’t escape my pride, my selfishness or my cynicism.

Of course, I can love those who treat me kindly. I can love people who are like me. That’s easy. But when I face people who strike me as irrational, hostile or cruel, I can barely contain the bitterness in my heart and mind.

And I suspect many of us feel the same way.

We live in a society boiling with rage and misunderstanding. I used to think human beings were growing more rational, that greater education and connection would make us better and more loving. Instead, our technologies connect us in ways that amplify anger and suspicion. We haven’t caught up — emotionally or spiritually — with the world we’ve built.

So everyone feels like a victim. Each group sees others as the oppressors. Each insists it’s right and the other side is evil. We nurture bitterness in our hearts, convinced that it’s the other people who need to change.

I see this everywhere in politics and culture. Each tribe casts itself as righteous; each paints its opponents as monsters. And beneath it all is a cancer of hatred eating away at our souls.

What confuses me most is how often Christians — my own people — lead the way in unloving behavior. Eager to defend doctrines or impose laws, many of us forget the words of the savior we claim to follow: Love your enemies. We read the command, but somewhere in the back of our minds we add, “Surely he didn’t mean those people.”

But he did.

I’m no better. I know my own failures too well to condemn others. But it unsettles me that so many Christians don’t even seem to recognize the contradiction. At least non-believers aren’t claiming to follow a God of love, so I can’t hold them to a command they don’t accept.

The only thing I’m certain about is that I am incapable of loving others. I’m not a good person. I don’t have a loving heart. I want to give up on all of you. I want to run away and become a hermit, far away from where others can hurt me and make me angry.

But I don’t have that option. I’m stuck with you. I need community. I need love. I need to obey the command to love God and love my neighbors.

And since I can’t do that on my own, my only hope is to trust God to love for me — to teach my unloving heart to love the unlovable human beings all around me.

It’s not a boast to claim to rely on an invisible God, of course. It’s just a confession of brokenness and need — a need for grace that I can find only in the God who made me.

I’m not doing well enough when it comes to loving any of you. I know I’m not. But I believe God can change me — if I’ll stop acting as though I’m good enough or smart enough or wise enough to learn how to love on my own.

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I’m seeing a lot of simplistic and dishonest explanations right now for the current rioting in France. Those on the populist far right claim it’s all about Muslim immigrants to France disrupting the culture. Their message is that this sort of thing is going to happen in the U.S. unless “we defend the border.” On the far left, socialists and their fellow travelers claim the riots are all about wealthy people in France not paying enough taxes, resulting in cuts to government services. The truth is far more complicated, but it’s rooted in the decline of population growth in Europe. There simply aren’t enough young workers paying into the tax system anymore, so cuts in social services were inevitable. There is genuine cultural tension as more and more people immigrate from other countries, but government cuts to education and other services are even more important to what’s happening. The situation is complicated, so don’t let dishonest people with U.S. political agendas tell you that it happens to support whatever they were already promoting for partisan reasons.

Here’s another reason to appreciate the cats in your life: New research involving 93 countries found that places with more cats per person also tended to have happier people. The researchers say the finding fits with previous evidence that living with pets can reduce loneliness and stress while providing companionship, emotional attachment and social support. The study doesn’t prove that cats cause greater happiness, but it certainly adds to the evidence that sharing your home — and your life — with a cat might be good for you.

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

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