Lost in the wilderness—that was how I felt. Maybe you've felt this way, too. I was in college at the time. Although I never would have expected it, somehow physical attraction rather than real love was driving my first romance. Initially, my girlfriend and I had been drawn to a kind of childlike innocence in each other, but in practice I had utterly failed to value her (and my) God-given purity.
What can be done, in such circumstances, to stop the rumination and begin reformation? For starters, it's possible to resist the insidious notion that anyone is unworthy of God's love and guidance. That notion can never be true. Our Shepherd, infinite Love, never stops loving any one of us. Human patience may seem to reach its limits at times. But God, as the Psalmist records, is "full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth." Ps. 86:15. To suppose that God's mercies can be exhausted is to believe that God is something less than infinite Love.
The story of the Apostle Peter is encouraging in this regard. For most of Jesus' ministry Peter was a loyal disciple, having left his fishing business to follow the Master. But at the time of Jesus' greatest need, Peter deserted him and even denied that he knew Jesus. After his third denial, Peter "wept bitterly," Luke 22:62. realizing what he had done.
