There’s definitely a fine line between love and hate. I read of a wife who was so fed up with her husband’s cheating that she said, “I didn’t want to divorce [him], but I wanted him to die.” The adulterous husband said of his bride: “I didn’t love her. I wanted a divorce.”

A disturbing account in the Bible reveals just how fast affection can turn to rejection. One of David’s undisciplined sons had fallen deep in lust with his beautiful half-sister Tamar (2 Samuel 13:1). His obsession led to a severe case of love-sickness and a really sick plan: Amnon decided to take Tamar’s love by force (2 Samuel 13:2,5). He “grabbed her and demanded” that she sleep with him—calling her “darling” (2 Samuel 13:11). Tamar resisted, but her brother overpowered her and raped her (2 Samuel 13:12,14). And just like that “Amnon’s love turned to hate, and he hated her even more than he had loved her” (2 Samuel 13:15). Tamar went from being darling to being despised.

What we see in Amnon’s horrific actions is reflected in many troubled marriages: the sin of selfishness. The young bride (see first paragraph) recognized her husband’s selfish ways. But she made a wise decision. “Instead of praying that [my husband] would fall back in love with me, I started praying that he would fall in love with God.” In time her husband’s cold heart began to melt. He did fall back in love with God and his wife once again. They now share a relationship deeply rooted in God Himself.

John wrote that “anyone who keeps on sinning does not know [God]” (1 John 3:6). But if we turn from our selfish sin and choose love, “God lives in us, and His love is brought to full expression in us” (1 John 4:12).

Turn your relationship from hate to love by loving God and leaving selfishness behind.

NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: Deuteronomy 34:1-12