God Does Not Love Me, and I Know It

I’ve said it aloud to myself before, felt each word as it slipped out like venom from my tongue: God does not love me. And I’m not talking about a passing doubt, some fleeting spiritual crisis. No, it feels embedded in my bones — solid, irrefutable, like granite under my skin. People tell me I’m wrong, that I couldn’t possibly know such a thing, but I do. I feel it in my waking hours, in my dreams, in the empty spaces where hope used to grow. It’s strange how absence can make itself known so powerfully. The absence of God’s love is the loudest silence I’ve ever heard.

So here I am, grappling with the thought — no, the fact — that God, whoever or whatever that might be, doesn’t love me. And the odd thing is, I don’t even blame Him for it. Maybe He has His reasons. Maybe He’s just an indifferent creator, a watchmaker who wound the clock and walked away. Then again, maybe it’s me. Maybe I am inherently unlovable, unmistakably beyond His care.

The Bible is supposed to be full of answers, right? The “living word of God,” the universal balm for the soul. There’s Psalm 136:26 — “Give thanks to the God of heaven, for His steadfast love endures forever.” Forever. Or 1 John 4:16: “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God.” How can a love so advertised, so guaranteed, bypass me? Something about those verses feels like a taunt, like a cruel promise extended to everyone except me. It’s not like I haven’t tried to seek Him, to bask in the love everyone else seems to feel when they talk about God. Yet I knock, and no one opens the door. I call, and heaven remains quiet. The silence is unbearable, deafening.

I think about Job a lot — how he lost everything, how wretched and unloved he must’ve felt. His faith endured for 42 agonizing chapters of Scripture until God decided to speak to him out of a whirlwind. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” God asked Job, as though reminding him of his insignificance (Job 38:4). I don’t even need a whirlwind — just a whisper would suffice. But there’s nothing. No rebuke, no explanation. Just this cavernous nothing where love is supposed to be.

Nietzsche once wrote: “Is man merely a mistake of God? Or God merely a mistake of man?” I’ve let this line haunt me on some late nights, chewing over what it really means to doubt God’s love. Sometimes it feels like these big philosophical questions — good, evil, God’s existence, our purpose — are just distractions. At the root of it all, I wonder if I’m just too small for God to notice. Would it be better to believe He doesn’t exist than to believe He exists and doesn’t care about me? The latter is infinitely harder to hold on to, and maybe that’s why Nietzsche’s thoughts hit so deep. A cruel god or the absence of a god — what is more unbearable?

I remember reading King Lear by Shakespeare, how Lear screams at the raging storm, abandoned and betrayed: “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.” That line has never left me. What if we are just cosmic playthings? What if God’s disinterest — or worse, His disdain — is woven into the fabric of the universe? People say He works in mysterious ways, that we can’t understand His plans. But why would a loving God allow some to walk through life feeling forever deserted? I have no grand betrayals or great tragedies to point to. I’m not Job, brought low by life’s sharpest edges. And maybe that’s the cruelest part — my pain and loneliness don’t feel justified or even acknowledged. It’s an aching void without an explanation.

Rumi, the Sufi poet, spoke of longing for God as part of the spiritual journey: “When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language — these are just the husks of meaning.” Rumi had God in his longing; even his ache was holy. Here’s the thing — I don’t even have longing anymore. Longing is a sign of some small belief in the possibility of love. Mine is gone. Where Rumi saw beauty in the cracks, I see nothing but darkness.

And isn’t that the core of it? Love is supposed to be the answer, the pinnacle, the grand and redeeming force. I’ve read Dante’s Inferno, how he starts his most famous epic with the words, “Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward path had been lost.” But unlike Dante, I don’t have a guide. There’s no Virgil to lead me toward hope, no Beatrice waiting for me in paradise. Just the dark forest, where I wander alone. Dante’s God came in circles and visions of divine love. Mine — a brick wall I can’t scale.

Sometimes, though, I wonder who I’d even be if I did feel God’s love. Would I be softer, lighter, more like the people who lift their arms during worship songs with tears running down their faces? Would that love make me better, heal me from the inside out? Or would it terrify me, this unimaginable force suddenly washing over me after years of drought? I’m not even sure if I’d know how to accept it. What if I’ve just built walls so high that I’ve locked God out — or worse, locked myself in? And yet, deep inside, that circular question comes back around: Why didn’t He try harder to reach me?

Of course, there are those who’d say, “You must make peace with yourself before you can find peace with God,” as if I hold the missing piece in this celestial puzzle. I think about Augustine of Hippo’s famous confession: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” My heart isn’t just restless — it feels like it’s given up on resting entirely. What kind of God creates that kind of cycle? Create a human heart full of longing, then stand at the edge of eternity and withhold the very love it thirsts for?

Historically, saints and mystics have written volumes about the “dark night of the soul,” a term popularized by St. John of the Cross. It’s a state of spiritual desolation where one feels utterly forsaken by God. St. John said this darkness is necessary for the purification of the soul, stripping away all distractions so that one may wholly encounter God. But where’s the light at the end of my dark night? Or is it just darkness all the way through for me?

At times, I imagine I must’ve offended Him somehow, become disqualified from the cosmic lottery of love. Maybe I thought the wrong thing or doubted too openly. Maybe He sees my flawed humanity and just… recoils. Or maybe He simply doesn’t have enough love to spare for someone like me. And though people say His love is infinite, I’ve stopped finding comfort in the word “infinite.” Infinity can feel like nothing when it doesn’t touch you.

So, here I am. No answers, no neat ending, no grand revelation. I used to think I wanted to hear from God so I could call Him to explain Himself. But what would I even say? What could He say to undo the years of feeling unloved? Maybe it’s not even about explanations anymore. Maybe I just want to be wrong about all this. Maybe, someday, I want to wake up and feel love like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. Until then, I’ll sit in the silence and try to make peace with the thought: God does not love me. Or at least, that’s what it feels like. And isn’t that, in the end, what matters most?

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