I know many Christians who have questioned whether God really loves them. They may have been believers for years, or even decades, but they still feel unloved. They doubt that God could love them. They feel that God would not want to love them. I have been one of those people – at least at times.
Yes, most of these Christians know in their heads that God loves them. It is spoken about so often in Scripture. But they do not feel it in their heart. They need to have their head knowledge become real, lived experience. But many cannot seem to make that happen.
Sure, our life as a believer is not determined by our feelings. But neither is it to be mere mental affirmations of what we find in the Bible. We need the Holy Spirit to take the truths of Scripture and bring them into our whole being with power and life.
And this is a life-long process. Too many people know so little about love because they never experienced it when growing up. Their parents may have abandoned them, or abused them, or ignored them, or remained cold and aloof. It is hard to overcome such painful and debilitating experiences.
So God has a lot of work to do to convince us that he is indeed a loving heavenly Father. There is a lot of healing that needs to take place. There is a lot of good teaching needed to correct so many of our wrong ideas about God and about life. And a lot of prayer, and at times counsel, is needed as well.
Let me mention just one new resource that some of you might find to be of real help here. And if you know anything about me, you will not be surprised to learn that it comes in the form of a book! I refer to Unloved: The Rejected Saints God Calls Beloved by Elyse Fitzpatrick (Lexham Press, 2025).
It looks at some biblical characters who seemed to be unlovable and unwanted. But God nonetheless loved them. They did not feel worthy of divine love. None of us are. But that is what is so amazing: God loves the unlovable. We do not deserve his love. We cannot earn his love. But we can partake of it as we come to Christ empty-handed, knowing that in our broken and sinful condition, any love we get is purely a result of God’s amazing grace.
So we have a biblical story such as the one about Hosea marrying Gomer the prostitute, and the children they conceive, including Lo-Ruhamah. Remember her? “Then the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”)’” (Hosea 1:6). Talk about a tough start to life with having a name like that. But God is involved in all this.
Other chapters look at Hagar, Tamar, Ruth and Naomi, and David and Bathsheba. The stories about these characters show us clearly what flawed, sinful, and undeserving figures they were. Yet on all of them God could pour out his love. That should give us all hope and encouragement.
Let me offer just two quotes from chapters that bookend these stories. In the Introduction she says this:
Within this book, you will find the stories of women and men whose lives would be best characterized by the word “messy.” None of them were consistently faithful, loving, kind, or courageous. They were weak and sinful. If the Lord were the Negotiator God, every one of them would have failed miserably to uphold their part of the deal. If he were the Gift-Giving Grandpa God, they would have consumed all the candy and spent their lives in agony on the bathroom floor. And most of them would never have even stopped to murmur a bloated, “Thank you.”
And yet, even though they often failed, constantly misunderstood their calling, wronged and abused one another, mistrusted God, broke their word, and wasted so many of the good gifts they were given, they are still—miraculously—called God’s beloved. On their own, they deserved the name “unloved”—they were destitute before God. In addition, most of them never stopped to realize that any blessings they enjoyed were pure gifts from God for which they should have been grateful. instead, they vacillated between viewing themselves as unlovable losers or virtuous overachievers, neither of which matches God’s description of who we are in him. (pp. 3-4)
Unloved: The Rejected Saints God Calls Belovedby Fitzpatrick, Elyse M. (Author)
And near the end of the book she holds up the example of Paul as she ties these different biblical stories together:
At the end of his life – a life of faithful obedience and astonishing sacrifice – the apostle Paul had this testimony: “This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’ – and I am the worst of them” (1 Timothy 1:15).
Can you say that with him? Can you say that Christ Jesus came into the world not to save the righteous who need no repentance (see Luke 5:32) but rather to save those who could never, would never, come to him in humility and plead for grace? Here is Paul’s take on his life and the Lord’s great grace: “But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in him for eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:16).
Have you received mercy? Why? Would you answer that question the way that Paul does? Have you received the kind of mercy that points to the “extraordinary patience” of Jesus? Yes, of course, our lives are meant to glorify God … but do we glorify him by how strong and successful we are, or do we glorify him in our weakness? Do we tell our neighbors that God loves good people like us, or that he loves great sinners (like us) and that there’s enough mercy for them there, too?
Can you see it? Paul and all of these dear brothers and sisters are just like you, just like me. Believing unbelievers. Obedient disobeyers. Faithful wafflers. Truthful deceivers. The confused, wandering, impatient waiters. And yet …
Can you see it? We should all be called unloved, but instead we have been declared beloved. We are loved because he first loved us, because he is love. That is the most important thing about us: we are beloved of God. In fact, it’s the only thing that will matter eternally. We are beloved because he says we are. Period.
So, let us put aside all the foolishness of the pragmatic, pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps theology we have preached to ourselves all these years and instead throw ourselves on the grace of God. The same God who called and loved the unsuccessful Hoseas; the scheming, deceptive, and condemning Judahs; the disrespected Tamars; the abusive Abrahams, Sarahs, and Davids; the disillusioned and faithless Naomis; the outsiders like Ruth; the sons of whores like Boaz; the brokenhearted Bathshebas; and the maligned and suffering Josephs and Marys. Paul’s testimony encourages me in this regard. He did great things, but that was not how he wanted to be remembered. He wanted to be remembered as the one who didn’t deserve mercy, who was unloved—but who was, more importantly, crowned as beloved instead. Like them, we are all the unloved beloveds.
So, let’s join the bedraggled, beloved saints before us and discover their joy by tearing down the meritocracy and instead walking straight into the life of shalom: of peace, joy, fullness, in spite of all we see with our eyes, in spite of all we still want, in spite of the way we’re denigrated or laughed at. We are no longer unloved. Rather, now, and always, we are called beloved. (pp. 145-146).
Now as always, some biblical balance is needed here. Chances are good that for every believer who is walking around feeling unloved and unwanted, there is another one who is proud and narcissistic, thinking he is the best, not realising that he is nothing without Christ.
These folks have an over-inflated estimation of themselves, and an under-inflated estimation of who God is, and how terrible the sin problem is. Folks like that may not need a book like this. But for those who do struggle, and do constantly wonder, ‘Does God really love me?,’ a book like this might just be the tonic needed.
So if you are struggling in this area, you need to keep in mind that God has made us “accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). That is such wondrous news. But yes, moving the mental acknowledgement of this grand truth to our very heart and soul may still take some work. Hopefully a book like this will help us in that process.
Afterword
As is often the case, some coincidental – but actually providential – things will arise. Just in the middle of penning this piece I stumbled upon a TV show in which some second-hand dolls were dumped into a bin, to be recycled for other children.
But this was an episode of The Twilight Zone, so these dolls were actually humans, and as they laid there in that large bin, one of them said that they were ‘unwanted and unloved.’ They were discarded hand-me downs. Of interest, I had seen that episode over 60 years ago as a child! The episode is found here (and I hope I have not given too much away for those who want to watch it): https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x80dvpb
That idea of being unwanted and unloved castoffs is of course exactly what this post has been all about, with believers thinking that no one – including God – wants them or loves them. Well, this is not the twilight zone, but the world that God has made, and we can rest assured that we are indeed fully loved and wanted by God.
2 Replies to “Are You Feeling Unloved and Unlovable?”
Thank you, Bill, for this beautiful and heartfelt reflection.
One key takeaway for me was to discover that the noble Israelite, Boaz, who married Ruth, the widowed Moabite daughter-in-law of Naomi, was the son of Rahab, the former prostitute of Jericho (see Matthew 1:5).
How could I have failed to notice that startling fact during my successive re-readings of the Gospel of Matthew?
In the Book of Ruth, one of the most beautiful stories in the Bible, the description of Boaz’s righteous and gracious character is meant to point us to Christ as our ultimate kinsman-redeemer.
Later, in the Old Testament, we further learn that Boaz and Ruth were the grandparents of none other than King David. And in the New Testament, we learn that they were ancestors of Jesus himself.
And that is despite Boaz having less-than-ideal parentage!
This paradox reminds me of a memorable scene in one of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian, in which Aslan is giving guidance to the newly-crowned king of Narnia.
He tells Caspian that his forebears were the descendants of pirates, originally from our world, who had come to Narnia via a magic cave and proceeded to suppress Narnia’s native inhabitants, the Talking Beasts.
Aslan’s dialogue with Caspian goes as follows:
“Do you mark all this well, King Caspian?” “I do indeed, Sir,” said Caspian. “I was wishing that I came of a more honourable lineage.”
“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth. Be content.”
Thank you, Bill, for this beautiful and heartfelt reflection.
One key takeaway for me was to discover that the noble Israelite, Boaz, who married Ruth, the widowed Moabite daughter-in-law of Naomi, was the son of Rahab, the former prostitute of Jericho (see Matthew 1:5).
How could I have failed to notice that startling fact during my successive re-readings of the Gospel of Matthew?
In the Book of Ruth, one of the most beautiful stories in the Bible, the description of Boaz’s righteous and gracious character is meant to point us to Christ as our ultimate kinsman-redeemer.
Later, in the Old Testament, we further learn that Boaz and Ruth were the grandparents of none other than King David. And in the New Testament, we learn that they were ancestors of Jesus himself.
And that is despite Boaz having less-than-ideal parentage!
This paradox reminds me of a memorable scene in one of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian, in which Aslan is giving guidance to the newly-crowned king of Narnia.
He tells Caspian that his forebears were the descendants of pirates, originally from our world, who had come to Narnia via a magic cave and proceeded to suppress Narnia’s native inhabitants, the Talking Beasts.
Aslan’s dialogue with Caspian goes as follows:
“Do you mark all this well, King Caspian?” “I do indeed, Sir,” said Caspian. “I was wishing that I came of a more honourable lineage.”
“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth. Be content.”
Many thanks John.