Become a Lovable Person

There was once a prince who lived in a castle, but he did not live like a prince.

His castle held wealth, beauty, servants, and comfort, but it did not hold love. The halls were large but empty, the rooms grand but cold, and the whole place was cursed.

At the center of that curse was the Beast.

He had not always looked that way, but selfishness, pride, and hardness had changed him. He was angry, demanding, and frightening. He wanted what others could give him, but he had not become safe enough to receive their hearts.

Then Belle came into the castle.

The Beast wanted Belle to love him. He wanted her to see past the ugliness and believe he was still worth loving. But at first he commanded, raged, and frightened her. He wanted her near while making nearness painful. The more he grasped, the more beastly he became.

He wanted to be loved, but he had not yet become lovable.

The Beast could not break the curse by forcing Belle to love him or frightening love into existence. The curse began to break only when he changed. He gave, served, sacrificed, stopped treating Belle like something to possess, and began to care more about her freedom than his own loneliness.

The curse breaks when selfishness breaks.

We may not live in a dark castle with an enchanted rose counting down the days, but selfishness can still curse a home. A person can have family, a spouse, children, and friends and still make the whole house heavy because selfishness rules the heart. A person can want tenderness while being harsh, want closeness while making closeness unsafe, and cry over being unloved while wounding the people trying to love them.

Some people are not lonely because no one cares. They are lonely because their selfishness keeps wounding the people who are trying to love them.

The deeper question is, What is it like to love me?

What is it like to tell me the truth? Do people breathe around me, or do they brace for impact? Do I receive correction, or do I make correction feel like war?

Becoming lovable does not mean becoming flawless. It does not mean earning love by perfection, performing for affection, or believing only easy, undamaged people are worthy of love.

A grieving person can be lovable. A wounded person can be lovable. A weak person can still be safe to love. The issue is not weakness. The issue is what we do with weakness.

Being hurt does not give us the right to hurt others. Being afraid does not give us the right to control others. Being disappointed does not give us the right to punish others. When love comes near, we must learn to receive it with humility instead of punishing it for arriving differently than we imagined.

A lovable person is not a flawless person. A lovable person is a changed person.

Christ Shows What Love Looks Like

Christ showed us what that changed heart looks like.

Near the end of His mortal ministry, Jesus sat at supper with His disciples. He knew who He was, that the Father had given all things into His hands, that He had come from God, and that He would return to God. With all of that divine authority in Him, He did not rise to demand honor. He rose to serve (John 13:3–5).

He laid aside His garments, took a towel, poured water into a basin, knelt before His disciples, and began to wash their feet.

In those days, people walked dusty roads in sandals. Their feet were dirty from sweat, dust, and the filth carried through the streets. Washing feet was a servant’s work, not the work of the master of the house.

That is why Peter resisted Him. Peter understood how lowly this work was. The Lord, the Master, the Holy One of Israel, should not have been kneeling at filthy feet with a towel in His hands.

But He did.

The Lord of heaven knelt before men who were weaker than Him, unable to fully understand Him, and soon to scatter. He did not use His greatness to make them feel small. He used His greatness to lift them. He did not use His authority to demand service. He used His authority to show them what holy service looks like (John 13:6–17).

Here is the difference between the Beast and Christ: the Beast used need to demand; Christ used greatness to serve. The Beast grasped for love and made closeness painful; Christ knelt in holiness and made the unclean clean.

What the world calls becoming lovable, the scriptures call charity.

Mormon taught, “And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” (Moroni 7:45).

Christ is not lovable because He needs adoration. He is lovable because He is charity.

Love flows to Him because love flows from Him.

Everything in Him is safe. His holiness does not drive the humble away; it heals them. His correction does not come from selfishness; it comes from truth. His mercy does not excuse sin; it lifts people out of it. His power does not crush the weak; it saves them.

If I am easily provoked, seek my own, envy, control, accuse, shame, or punish, I am not yet loving like Christ. If people become smaller, heavier, more afraid, or less honest around me, I need Christ to change me.

Charity Is Tested in Difficulty

Charity does not only govern how we treat the people who are easy to love. Christ commanded us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44).

That love is tested when people inconvenience, oppose, hurt, or frustrate us. When someone cuts us off, slows us down, breaks something, or gets in our way, what comes out of us? Do we become sharp, scorn them under our breath, or make another person pay for an inconvenience?

Those moments reveal us.

Loving enemies does not mean giving unsafe people access, pretending wrong is right, or allowing harm to continue. Charity does not remove wisdom, boundaries, consequences, or safety. It changes what rules the heart. A disciple of Christ can tell the truth without trying to destroy, set a boundary without hatred, correct without humiliation, and refuse access without revenge.

Christ does not only redeem selfishness. He can cleanse anger, pride, envy, bitterness, dishonesty, cruelty, fear, rebellion, and every unholy thing that keeps the soul unlike Him. Nothing beastly in us is too strong for His grace if we will stop rejecting it.

He can take selfish people and teach them to give, teach meekness to the angry, trust to the fearful, and surrender to the controlling. He can make the beastly gentle, the untrustworthy trustworthy, and the selfish full of charity.

This is not condemnation. This is hope.

But we must stop defending the curse.

We cannot keep saying, “This is just how I am,” when how we are is hurting the people we claim to love. We cannot call selfishness love or demand that others prove devotion by enduring cruelty. We cannot excuse contempt because someone annoyed us or justify bitterness because someone hurt us.

If we want love to grow around us, we must become people who make love safe.

When people become full of charity, their homes start to feel different. Others breathe easier around them. Truth becomes safer. Correction can happen without war. People stop bracing for impact. They leave strengthened instead of wounded.

Belle did not save the Beast by pretending he was not beastly. The Beast became lovable because he stopped being ruled by what made him a beast.

The curse broke when selfishness broke.

The Beast shows us the curse. Christ shows us the cure. A lovable person is not a flawless person. A lovable person is a changed person.

Love is not just something we want to receive.

Love is something we must become.