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WINNING WITH THE WORD “Winning with the Word” is a weekly blog that will help you to be a winner in life by applying God’s principles for living the abundant life as found in the Bible, God’s manual for life. AN INVITATION TO YOU: To subscribe to this blog, click here.  To subscribe to this podcast, click here. If this blog and podcast have blessed you, please encourage your family and friends to subscribe as well. Thank you! Be sure to check out our Featured Book of the Week at the end of this post. ______________________________________   Do you prefer listening instead of reading? Then click below to listen to today’s blog post on podcast. https://content.blubrry.com/winning_with_the_word/How_Big_Is_Your_God_.mp3 ___________________________________________________________________________ Hello and Happy Day! This is Dr. MaryAnn Diorio, novelist and life coach, welcoming you to another episode of Winning with the Word. Today is Monday, January 17, 2022, and this is Episode #3 of Series 2022. This episode is titled "How Big is Your God?" Are you facing an impossible situation? Maybe you've been given an incurable medical diagnosis. Maybe you've gone bankrupt with no prospect of a job that pays enough to get you out of your deep, financial hole. Maybe your spouse has just walked out on you, leaving you alone with small children to raise. Whatever the case, you're feeling hopeless.  In my novel, The Madonna of Pisano, the first book in my Italian Chronicles trilogy, my main character, Maria Landro, faces a hopeless situation. Raped by a man she deeply trusted and pregnant with his child, she finds herself frightened, ostracized, and alone in a small, 19th-century Sicilian village. Gossiping tongues wag fiercely behind her back, threatening to destroy any vestige of self-worth she still might have. Unable to move forward, she goes into hiding for six years, only to discover, upon her return to society, that it is now her little boy who bears the brunt of her tragic experience. Eventually, Maria must come to grips with how she perceives the size of her God. Her pivotal question becomes: Will she trust God to save her, or not? Perhaps you, too, like Maria, are struggling with trusting God. Perhaps your God is an uncaring God, a distant or absent God, or a disinterested God. Perhaps your God is an angry God, a fickle God, or a demanding God. But, none of these lenses reveals the true character of our God. Let's take a look at Exodus 34: 6-7, where Moses ascends Mount Sinai to get the second copy of the Ten Commandments after he angrily destroyed the first copy upon seeing the idolatrous sin of the nation of Israel. In this passage, we learn about the true nature of God as He describes Himself to Moses: "The LORD passed in front of Moses, calling out, 'Yahweh! The LORD! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.”  So, what do we learn from this passage? We learn that God is full of mercy and compassion toward us. We learn that He is filled with love toward us and wants to bless us and our families. We learn that God wants to forgive us of our sin. He is not ready to pounce on us; He is ready to welcome us! We also learn that God is just. In other words, He cannot turn His back on sin. If we do not repent of our sin, we must be punished for it. But God has provided a way out of our sin. That way out is Jesus Christ. Jesus took the rap for our sin. He took the punishment for our sin that should have been inflicted on us. But, He loved us so much that He wanted to be punished in our place.  When Jesus took the punishment for our sin,