Is there a difference between Divine love and human affection?
Human affection is usually contingent on many factors. I love my own child more than other people’s children. I’m more invested in friends whom I spend time with than friends whom I haven’t seen in decades. If someone repeatedly hurts me, I instinctively put up protective barriers against further exposure to pain.
Human love is self-gratifying. My love for my husband, my son, my friends--all bring me a sense of satisfaction and joy. These relationships are reciprocal. There is an expectation of give-and-take. Divine love is self-sacrificial. It is all about giving. It is more concerned about the other’s highest good than its own welfare.
Divine love is unconditional, unfailing, and enduring. Human love is conditional, limited, and circumstantial. It is more about self-gratification and less about self-sacrifice. Yet, we can be powered by God’s wide-open, extravagantly abundant love rather than by our narrow, meager, human love. We merely have to dissolve into this Higher Power that engulfs us.
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