What does it take to be loved? There are people in our lives who have broken our hearts and walked on the pieces left in their quake. We are left bereft; broken, hurt, filled with emptiness, loneliness and anger. We are left wondering if we will live out the rest of our life unwanted and unloved. But there is one who has loved us from the beginning.

Unwisely, we search for love in a crazy world that cannot satisfy our souls. Satan whispers how unworthy we are to be loved at all. We forget he is the father of lies, and he is lying in our ear. We were made to be loved; we were created from God’s love, and ‘His loving kindness is everlasting’ – 2 Chr 7:6. The problem with being broken is we forget or do not know how to live loved.

Each of us, regardless of our past and imperfections, is individually loved beyond the scope of our human capacity. To live loved is to accept there is One who loves us unconditionally – a concept difficult for us to understand when our own personal love is given conditionally as Jesus illustrated in Matthew 5:46; “For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”

No matter how badly we have been hurt in the past by people, God’s love is enduring and endless. ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness’ – Jeremiah 31:3. In fact, God loved us before we ever loved Him.

O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them. – John 17:25-26

And even though we still may feel broken God has promised to lift us. ‘I will build you and you will be rebuilt’ – Jeremiah 31:4

William Paul Young wrote in The Shack, “Living unloved is like clipping a bird’s wing and removing its ability to fly.” We were made in God’s image with love. To be a child of God is to walk in love no matter what may be happening in our lives. Our love bears witness to Christ, for we are loved totally and unconditionally. We just have to learn to live loved.