ve faith.
All His encomiums are for those who trust Him with a romantic
recklessness.

Did you happen to meet the woman with the issue of blood as she set out
to see Jesus? Well, it is good that you did not or you would have done
your best to have discouraged her. Of course you would and so would I.
"Sarah," I would have said, "are you going to ask Jesus to help you?
Are you going to seek him out and fall on your face before Him in
prayer?" "No," she would have answered, "I am not going to pray. I am
not going to ask the Master to do anything for me at all. I am simply
going to slip up behind Him when the crowd is thronging Him, and touch
His garment. I have a shamefaced disease. I want as little attention
as possible. Hence I am not going to say a single word to Jesus."

Then, I would have answered with conviction, "You will never be cured.
The Master has made no promise that He will honor a mad faith like
yours. When did He say He would heal if you merely slipped up in a mob
and touched the fringe of His garment?" But I was not there to throw
dashes of cold water upon the fire. She went on her reckless way. And
wonder of wonders, she was healed.

"Lord, bid me come," said Peter. And what was the reply of Jesus? Did
He say, "Peter, I am astonished at you. Why do you want to do this
foolish and insane and impossible thing? Don't you know that the storm
is against you? Don't you know that the law of gravitation is against
you? Don't you know that the whole experience of the race is against
you? You have been about the sea all your life. When did you ever see
anybody walk on the waves? Why do you request, then, to do this absurd
and ridiculous and impossible thing?"

But Jesus did not say that. I never read where He told a single
trusting heart that his request was impossible. I do read where He
said the very opposite. He said, "All things are possible to him that
believeth." He makes all things possible. That is what he is for. He
ever attacks men at the point of their impossibilities. He calls on
the selfish man to love his neighbor as himself. He calls on the
paralytics to rise and walk. And never does He have a rebuke for the
man who dares to fling himself blindly upon His power.

And instead of rebuking Peter He approved him. He encouraged him. He
set His sanction upon his request. He said to him, "Come." I am sure
if you or I had been there we would have wanted Him to have said