Conditional Love

I have been reading the book Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus. Good stinkin' book. It goes through the deepest desires of our soul. Right now I'm reading the part about our souls desire... no, need, for love. God created us to be human beings that need love to survive.

The problem is though, the world, and I would argue even religion have taken love and created a subtle premise that love is conditional. And we've come to this point where we are more comfortable with conditional love than we are unconditional love. If it is conditional, we can control our actions and our thoughts and we can control the things about us that people will love. We have no sense, no understanding of an unconditional love. How can we accept the greatest love of all when we and others can't love every part of us?

A passage of this book says...

"Its just too hard to believe that if you come near to God, you will find yourself not drowning in condemnation, but swimming in compassion. Jesus called to all who were weary and who found their souls exhausted to come to him and find rest. He is telling us that God will be for us our place called home. We run form God because we long to be loved and we have convinced ourselves that the One who is most loving could not and would not embrace u. We run from the one our souls crave. It is insanity to run from God and search for love."

We run from the God of the universe that gives an amazing, unconditional love because we know what we have done. We know who we are. And therefore, we think, because other people don't love us, because we can't love ourselves, that God wouldn't either. That is so untrue.

How can we break free from this feeling of being unloved. How can we convince our friends who feel so very, very unloved that they are loved beyond all measure?