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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