Answer:
My 13-year-old daughter asked me the other day to explain the Trinity to her, and how the Holy Spirit could be God and yet be a separate expression or entity of the Trinity. I tried my best but could not put into words what she was looking for. She said, “I understand Jesus being God’s Son, and I can understand the Father – but how I am having a hard time understanding the concept of the Holy Spirit.”
This is how I got through – I put a cup in the microwave and boiled some water. I took the boiling cup out and I dropped an ice cube into the cup. I said to Megan – quickly come and tell me everything you see. She replied “Water in the cup, an ice cube in the cup, and steam coming off the cup.” I asked her if she could see three separate things and she said yes. Then I asked her, “Aren’t they all really H2O? She said, “Yes!” Three things, all equal and with the same makeup, yet each having a distinct expression.
I went on to tell her that H2O has three forms, and it is easier for us to touch and feel the water or the ice, just as it is easier for our brains to somehow grasp the concept of Father and Son. In many ways the Holy Spirit is like the steam, because He is around us and He is God with us. I shared the scripture with her, John 3:8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Here the Holy Spirit is likened to the wind (sort of like my steam) – we certainly can see what the wind does and we can hear the wind move – so it is with the Spirit of God. We see His transforming power in the life of the Believer.
I think she began to understand. She also grasped how God can be three in one, just as the H2O can have three separate and unique expressions yet each of them is equal to the other.
Keep up the faith,
Pastor Brad