Yet doesn’t God continue to love us, no matter how we sin? It is the sin that pains Him because it separates us from Him. He is always waiting for the Prodigal to repent and come home - and the Prodigal didn’t have to pass a test or trial or anything else to prove himself.
God always love us. It is our sin that separates us from Him - not His will or rejection.
1 John 4:19 - "We love him, because he first loved us." (KJV)
God is actively working in the prodigal to bring him home, not just waiting for him to return. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that causes us to desire Him, even before we come to Him in faith. Without the work of the Holy Spirit our desire is to ourselves and our own methods of justification. Once the Holy Spirit convinces us of our need for Him then we can come to Him freely through the blood of Christ.