24. When God is silent but not absent - with Nigel Langford

Have you ever had one of those periods in your life where you’ve felt that God is completely distant and silent? You might have had times when you’ve felt so close to God you could reach out and touch Him, He’s right there, but now you find He is far away.

If you have also felt very close to Him, the distance and the silence can seem all the more perplexing. It can also make you feel like you are the only person in the world to have felt this way.

Well I have good news for you, you’re not the first person to feel this, and indeed it’s a natural part of our walk with God. Neither are you on your own. When you feel that God is distant you are in fact part of a great tradition that stretches back through church history to the great men and women of the faith, and back further to New Testament times, times of adversity and sacrifice and back further still to the old testament, to the prophets and leaders of God’s chosen people.

What we learn, as my guest today will testify, is that often God is silent but not absent. That we can’t hear Him or even sense Him does not mean that He is gone. Rather He is present in the wrestling and the conflict

So my guest today is Nigel Langford, a former church pastor and currently Director of Domestic Mission in the UK for the Bible Society. Nigel shares with us his own experiences of wrestling with God’s silence, of partnering with God as He works in the world, and on learning the deep and profound meaning of what it is to be adopted by God as His child. I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation, here it is.