Of David in a mood of joy and thankfulness we are told: “And King David came and sat before the Lord, and said: Who am I, O Lord God, that Thou shouldst give such things to me?”[27] See, too, the simplicity and confidence of Ezechias on receiving the threatening message of Sennacherib: “And Ezechias took the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it, and went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord”.[28] A common complaint is that daily worries and anxieties so invade our minds that our prayer has no chance. But is this our feeling about a talk with a trusty friend--a man of sound judgment, wide experience and influence, on whose interest in all that concerns us we can count with certainty? Should we say: “I had half an hour with him this morning, but my mind was so full of that affair I could find nothing to say”; or: “I had it all out with him this morning, and am ever so much better already”? Why not deal thus familiarly with our best Friend? If Ezechias could spread out his letter before the Lord in that old Temple, which was but a shadow of the better things to come, why may not we carry our good news and our bad before the pitying human Heart of Christ, with us all days on purpose to hear every day, and, if we will, every hour of the day, all we have to tell Him, and hearing all, to help in all? Had our Lord said to us: “I will prosper any spiritual concerns that you commend to Me, but really you must look after your own temporal affairs, and I shall count it an irreverence if you bring such things into My presence”--had He said this, there might be some excuse for the pains we take to shut Him out of the cares and business of everyday life. But has He said this, or does all we know of Him go to prove the exact contrary? Did He count it an irreverence when the sick were thrust upon Him at every step; when a paralytic let down from the roof and laid at His feet stopped His teaching; when messengers came one upon another to draw Him here and there for some temporal need: “Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick”;[29] “Lord, come down before that my son die”?[30] Did He refuse the invitation at Cana? And if for a brief space He delayed the miracle designed from all eternity to manifest His tender interest in the joys as well as in the sorrows of home life, was it not obviously to show how Mary’s heart beat in unison with His, and to honour His Mother’s prayer? “Lord, come and see,” said the weeping sisters as they led the way to the grave. Look at Him between them, listening now to one, now to the other, as they tell the history of the past three days--how they had watched and waited for Him, and counted on His coming, and He came not. See their tearful eyes. See the eager Heart, longing for the moment when He may reward their trust and turn their mourning into gladness.