Getting (surprisingly) personal...

Yesterday, I wrote:
I do not have faith or hope in the power of programs to change a person's life. Programs only work if people are already self-motivated to change, and nary but a few have the capacity for that sort of bootstrap pulling. Real change only seems to come through loving, safe, long-term relationships. People, not programs, change people.

That prompted some good comments, which are prompting this post.

Change. It is something that perplexes me. It feels like the substance of life--moving from one place and understanding to increasingly better and wiser places and understandings. Humans have a choice: we can coast through life unaware (perhaps distracted by comfort, survival, or selfishness) or we can be conscious of the limited time we have to be alive, and aware of the people and world around us. Which is the better response often depends on who you're asking.

I agree that love is what changes people, and the twisting of love. The most severe damage is caused by people manipulating love for their self-interests--emotional, mental, social, sexual. Bad love turns people into things they would not have otherwise become, and offers them little choice in the becoming. The only hope for healing comes from good love, given freely and without condition. It's what we were built to need, but so infrequently receive from other needy humans.

Enter God, who had his own son's blood paid out to cover the cost of all humanity's evil. He offers us unconditional love--genuinely pure forgiveness and acceptance--if we believe that He is true and risen from the dead, and if we live like we believe it. This is the love that conquers death and can repair all damages. I sincerely and deeply believe this, and yearn for it. The bible says it's true, the bible is incredibly historically viable, and I've seen it happen in many people's lives, from completely different walks of life. Other faiths can't make the same claims. There's no way I can deny it.

My difficulty comes in my own struggle for change. In my head, I know that God cannot love me any more or less than He does, that I cannot earn His love, and that His love for me will not change, ever. But in my heart, why do I not feel or understand God's love for me the way I can feel another human's love for me? I see that other people have that peace. Why can I not escape sin, selfishness, and evil in my own life? Romans 7 answers that sufficiently, except when crossed with the theme of John 14:23. If this is so important to me, why is it so difficult for me to be disciplined (in prayer and study) as I pursue truth?

How can I find peace in never feeling good enough for God (which I never should), yet accepting that He loves me unconditionally? How can I change to the point that I am genuinely more concerned for someone--anyone--than I am for my own self? Unselfish, unconditional love has been given to me. But I cannot feel it, and I don't know how to respond to it. How can I change to the point that I live what I know?