compassion, this stooping to hear and act on behalf of humans has often been misread. We’ve taken God’s love to mean His subservience to us. He becomes our cosmic errand boy, our Wesley in The Princess Bride: “As you wish.” From the language and approach the church has employed, we are left to conclude that if the church—God’s agent on earth—exists to cater to our every whim, then surely God must operate the same way. We carry on in this state of sweet spiritual bliss until the unthinkable happens: Instead