Not too long ago, my daughter was quite ''vexed'' with me.  We had had a typical mother/daughter squabble over something I can''t even remember and she was giving me a bit of the silent treatment.  Since we are very close, I missed talking with her.  In the meantime, I continued working on a surprise that I had planned for her.  It gave me great pleasure to think about how guilty she was going to feel for not talking to me when she saw the lovely surprise I had in store for her.  Why did I continue to work on the surprise despite the fact that she was greatly annoyed with me?  The answer is simple - I totally love that girl!  Besides, I knew she would love the surprise and she would soon be back to her usual, loveable self.

It reminded me of a season in my own life when I was really mad at God.  I had been praying about a very important situation for a very long time.  I had confessed God''s word, stood on His promises and even felt sure that He would answer exactly as I thought He should.  But He didn''t.  I was hurt and puzzled by His response.  The answer was not at all what I expected and didn''t appear fair from my human point of view.  So I got mad.  I decided to give Him the silent treatment.  I really believed that since He wouldn''t cooperate, then I was simply going to stop talking to Him.  And to top it off, I wasn''t going to read my Bible either!

Despite my ridiculous behavior, God continued to talk to me.  Not only that, He continued to provide blessings and suprises that I pretended didn''t come from Him at first, but later had to admit - I may have been giving Him the silent treatment but He was still totally in love with me!  Before long, I couldn''t hold out, I came back to my senses and ran back to God where I belonged.

Isn''t that exactly like our kind and merciful Heavenly Father?  The Bible teaches: "Even when we were dead in our sins, Christ died for us."  In other words, even when we were giving God the silent treatment and focusing on our own way, God had a great surprise for us.  He began planning it from the beginning of time.  What was the surprise? A way back to Him through Jesus, the Christ.

So what is standing between you and God?  Are you giving Him the silent treatment?  During this Easter season, think about the miracle of salvation that God has planned for you.  He stands at the door of your heart knocking and if you invite Him in, He will come and dine with you and you can begin enjoying His awesome plans for your life.  But more importantly, you can begin enjoying the wonderful fellowship that comes from knowing our amazing, endearing, all-powerful God.

"For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten [unique] Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.  For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him."  ~ John 3:16-17