Please, everyone stop fighting on this beautiful thread. That will show the love of Christ more than anything.
I hope the canoe artist can bring himself to say that he, as even God does, hopes that this love is crowned by an accepted salvation by both parties in the supreme love of God.
But again maybe he can’t, maybe he holds to a theological model that has God as never transcending the role of mechanical puppeteer, driven by His own sovereign powers to never yield to anything even by choice. That also makes a triviality out of love, makes out of all its passions a sham kabuki dance, but who’s counting...