God’s Universal Love

It’s a beautiful, grounding truth, isn’t it? That deeply personal conviction: “I know God loves me.”

It’s a lifeline in the storm, a warm blanket on a cold night, a whisper of belonging in a noisy world. It speaks to a personal relationship, a felt connection, a sense of divine favour and understanding that nurtures the soul. This certainty can be the bedrock of faith, a source of unimaginable peace and strength.

But then, the gaze lifts from the comforting reflection of that personal love and sweeps across the vast, messy, sometimes jarring landscape of humanity. And the uncomfortable question arises, often unbidden: “Okay, God loves me… but what about all the other weird, unpleasant people in the world?”

It’s a question rooted in a very human place. We categorise, we judge, we recoil. We encounter people whose opinions grate, whose habits annoy, whose very presence feels discordant with our own sense of order or preference. There are those who seem deliberately contrary, those who radiate negativity, those whose values appear diametrically opposed to everything we hold dear, even those whose actions cause real pain or discomfort.

Some are just different in ways we find strange – their mannerisms, their interests, their way of seeing the world. Others are genuinely unpleasant – rude, selfish, unkind, maybe even cruel. Our immediate, gut reaction can be rejection, distance, or even mild disdain. And if God’s love is this powerful, personal force that envelops us, how could it possibly extend to them?

This is where our beautiful, comforting certainty about God’s personal love meets the challenging, often baffling, reality of God’s universal love. Because if we believe in a God whose love is boundless, unconditional, and the very essence of their being, then that love cannot logically be confined to the people we deem worthy or likeable.

Here are a few ways to grapple with this uncomfortable contradiction:

God’s Perspective is Not Ours: We judge based on external behaviour, immediate interactions, and how others impact us. God, in most faith traditions, is understood to see deeper – into hearts, histories, pain, and potential. What looks like “unpleasantness” to us might be a symptom of deep brokenness, fear, trauma, or misunderstanding from a divine perspective.

Love Doesn’t Equal Endorsement: God loving someone doesn’t mean God condones their harmful actions or unpleasant behaviour. Love, in a divine sense, is often about seeing the inherent worth, the spark of the divine (if you believe in that), the potential for redemption, or simply the reality of their existence as a created being, despite their flaws or actions.

We Are All “Unpleasant” to Someone: Be honest. To someone else, you might be that weird, unpleasant person. Our quirks, our certainties, our blind spots, our bad moods – they all impact others. Recognising our own capacity for being difficult can foster empathy (or at least humility) towards others.

The Nature of Agape: Many faiths speak of a kind of divine love (like the Greek “agape”) that is unconditional, sacrificial, and not based on the merit of the recipient. It’s a volitional love, a commitment to the well-being of the other, regardless of whether they are loveable in a conventional sense. Our personal experience of God’s love might be how this universal Agape manifests to us, but it doesn’t mean the Agape stops there.

Their Existence Points to God’s Mystery: Perhaps the very existence of people we find difficult is a constant, challenging reminder that God’s ways are not our ways, and God’s love is VASTLY bigger and more mysterious than our limited human capacity to understand or dispense love. It pushes us beyond our comfort zone and calls us to contemplate a love that truly “makes the sun rise on the evil and the good” (Matthew 5:45).

So, knowing God loves you is a precious, essential truth. Hold onto it. But don’t let it become a barrier that excludes the rest of humanity from the potential reach of that same divine love. The challenge isn’t just believing God loves us, but wrestling with the idea that the same source of infinite love might look upon the “weird,” the “unpleasant,” the “difficult” with a compassion and understanding we can barely fathom.

It doesn’t mean we have to invite everyone over for dinner, agree with harmful ideologies, or put ourselves in unsafe situations. But it calls us to a deeper humility about our own judgements and a greater awe at the immeasurable, sometimes uncomfortable, scope of divine love.

Perhaps, in seeing others through the potential lens of God’s love for them, we might even find our own response to them changing, ever so slightly, towards patience, curiosity, or simply, a quiet acknowledgement of shared, flawed humanity under a vast, loving sky.