Trinity

Often I've heard Christians saying things like "If only Jesus was here, it would be ok." and "I just want to be with Jesus." There's nothing wrong with those sentiments of course, there is a longing for an encounter with the tangible Jesus, but I think we often forget that God is revealed in more than one person, and one of those persons is with us.

When Jesus went away, he sent us his Holy Spirit - and that Spirit is a full member of the trinity of God. I sometimes think we don't give her the respect she deserves. We argue about what the Holy Spirit can and can't do - who are we to decide that? We have the Holy Spirit living with us and in us, and we don't pay her enough attention to make any difference to our lives! We are waiting for a bigger and better God to come along before we change - it doesn't get any better than the Holy Spirit in us, she is God.

(I'm not being deliberately provocative using 'She' for the Holy Spirit, I think God is bigger than the male/female segregations we know of (otherwise Jesus' death could not have saved me) and the idea that God is always 'he' and never has aspects of 'she' describes a God that is distant from women. There are lots of things feminists do with the image of God that I don't like, but the idea that the Holy Spirit has feminine qualities is one that I think is a realistic concept and (possibly) doesn't go against biblical revelation of who God is. I am open to being corrected though.)