The Fraility of Human Love Compared to God's

“God always allows us to feel the fraility of human love so we’ll appreciate the strength of His.”
– C.S. Lewis

Human love is so fragile. Almost everyone has been hurt by someone they’ve loved, and has lost a loved one through death or estrangement. Human love can be sweet, blessed, and wonderful one moment; and sorrowful, frustrating, and painful another moment.

We humans struggle to love unconditionally. Core to our struggle is our sinful nature which leads us to love less well than we should. The state of marriage reflects this fraility. Divorce rates reveal that we don’t know how to love in the committed way that God expects us to love.

Likewise, we often seek to attain other people’s love. There are common ways we do this: over-focusing on achieving success for the love and favor that accompanies it; seeking to be loved by friends and others through dressing, acting, and buying the same things as them; and deliberately changing things about our true selves to make significant others love us. We put on plenty of masks to win love.

Human love…well, it doesn’t feel quite like divine love.

The story of the prodigal son reminds us of the difference between human and divine love. The elder son is like us humans. He grows resentful because he rightfully earned his father’s love and favor, while the other son was irresponsible and wasted his father’s inheritance. The elder son views love with a conditional lens, something to be earned and won with the right behavior and something to be lost with the wrong behavior. The father, however, loves both of his sons with unconditional love and extends his mercy to the younger son. God our Father does just the same.

There’s nothing we can do to earn God’s love, and there’s nothing we can do to take away God’s love. God always does what is best for us out of love and forgives us when we stumble. Divine love is unconditional, beautiful, and ultimately, the only thing we can truly rely on.

We are the Lord’s beloved, forever and always. When human love fails or pains you, remember this, and find strength in it.