The common adage is "love others as you love yourselves," but for many of us, we would not wish that kind of love on anyone. We, for the most part, do not know how to love ourselves well. We do not understand unconditional love. Further, most people do not know they are loved unconditionally by God. Because most people do not know that, they are unable to love others well.
Oh I say I know God loves me, because my minds can logically admit that of course God loves us. I mean he has to, right? But most of us do not really understand or grasp the fact in our heart, soul, and spirit that God is passionately in love with us. We do not fully believe that reality, because if we really believed the unconditional love of God for us, we would bleed with that reality.
If I really lived a life that was fully confident that God loves me tenderly, I would be bringing and pouring that kind of love out on everyone I came into contact with. If I truly accepted and lived my life with the full understanding of God's unconditional love for me, I could not hold back healing reconciliation and hope from oozing from my life.
If I truly lived my life in acceptance of God's unending love for me, my only desire would be for everyone to know about it. I would want the only message from my mouths and life to be, "YOU ARE LOVED!"
But many of us do not know that love well enough. Many of us have not truly accepted that love nor believed that love enough. Many of us attack ourselves and tear ourselves down for a myriad of reasons, and with each one, deny the fact that we are tenderly and deeply loved. We are unable to really accept that unconditional love because we hang on to our own conditions. We have a death grip on all the conditions and limits we have placed on love, and in so doing, are incapable of accepting real and true unconditional love.
Truth of the matter is that the unconditional love is there whether I like it or not. I am deeply and tenderly loved whether I believe it or not. If I could learn to live in that understanding though, it would revolutionize the way I love those around me.