Hi, my name is Pete Scuzaro. I want to welcome you today to the Emotionally Healthy

Leader podcast. Great to be with you for another week. Today our topic is how God's absence

is a form of his presence. How God's absence is a form of his presence. Last week, in this podcast,

we talked about how God's equally present in failure as well as success. That is in setbacks,

disappointments, that ends losses. And so often we want to keep our situation, we want to change

our situation and get back to, quote, normal, and yet God's very much out to

change us and our understanding of him and the way he works, his ways, et cetera.

And so often our situation may look like a disaster, but it's actually a great blessing

and an opportunity to get to know God and ourselves on a very deep level.

And so we talked about shifting our following of Jesus, our Christianity, from mega,

the big to the mustard seed, as Jesus talked about, the nature of his kingdom and how God's

found in such unexpected places that, again, places we don't expect.

So today I want to come at this theme from another angle,

and that is how God's absence is a form of his presence.

Now, let me just summarize everything I'm going to say in a sentence or two,

which is this, that the seeming absence of God on the spiritual journey

is actually very often, if not always, a powerful

manifestation of his kingdom. And his presence is very real in those moments, but often in a very

hidden way. Now, in a lot of my work, I'm talking with pastors and leaders from places as diverse as Europe and Africa, Latin America, Asia, Australia, North America.

And I hear a common theme, especially in these days in the midst of COVID, and that is the

disorientation is great.

The shifts happening in our world are disorienting in our churches and our families and our

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