It can be phrased many different ways ...whether 'looking back', 'turning back', or 'returning'.

When the children of Israel were enslaved by Egyptian rule, there was a longing to 'return' to their land.  Most of us have heard the saying, "You can take him out of the country, but you can't take the country out of him."  Well, it was miraculous how they were delivered out of Egypt, but it would take a personal effort to get the way they had lived in Egypt out of them.  And the 10 Commandments addressed the things they were to work on.

God does not abandon us ...He will work with us through our struggles.  And though we may have a great love for God, we don't always understand Him.  At first, King David didn't want the ark of the covenant because he had difficulty with a decision God made.  And don't think we only have to learn a couple of lessons in our lifetime.  King David loved God, but had occasion to struggle with how to make that work on a human level.    

When the Bible says, "Return to your first love", it means something different than what many of us make it to mean.  

It is good to have cherished memories from our past ...we all should have some fondness we can look back to.  It is healthy if we have moments we are grateful for ...kind of the sentiment of celebrating holidays like Thanksgiving.

But, we should also have a good, healthy perspective ...and realize that though we have fond memories, we need to mature with them also.  Many things we look at as love, are not quite accurately so.  And to define true love, it may seem like our first vulnerable moment, a 'crush', or some other high moment in our life ...but, in it's purest form, God is love.

And when the Bible says we have lost that, it is because we drift away, get distracted, and move on ...to other things.