What/Who is the Holy Spirit?

For episode 008...

Brittany Salmon joins me to talk about the Holy Spirit and shares a ton of encouragement for those moments when you totally botch a conversation with your kids and when you are busy and struggle with balancing all the plates that you have spinning. 

You can listen to the Questions Kids Ask episode answering What or Who is the Holy Spirit? on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play, or listen below.

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Brittany is a wife, mom, writer, and book aficionada. She has an MA in intercultural studies from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, an MA in teaching from North Carolina State University, and is currently pursuing a doctorate from Southeastern Seminary. Brittany & Ben, their three kids, and a dog named Mr. Tom Hanks recently moved from Raleigh, NC to the great state of Texas and are enjoying learning the ropes of becoming Texans. You can connect with Brittany on Twitter or Instagram.

Let's get to know Brittany a little better. I asked her: 

what does your free time look like?

It's a fleeting thing. Brittany loves to read, but she's in school right now, so reading for fun and reading for school are very different. She talks about fiction and fun reads, and I want to take a minute to shamelessly plug how much I love reading, too -- and how much I want you to love reading. Fiction is a great way to see so many similar storylines to Scripture and to celebrate great writing.

Here's our big question for today: What or Who is the Holy Spirit?

Brittany took her kids to Disney recently, and there was a ride with ghosts. So of course, Brittany told her twins that ghosts aren't real, because her two 5-year-olds view ghosts as cartoon characters. Then, not long after, they were talking about Jesus' second coming and Brittany used the word "Holy Ghost" as they talked about Jesus sending a Helper in His name. 

What a great way to talk about the Holy Spirit with kids! Brittany mentions when one of her girls is afraid at night, they are able to talk about praying to God, and when she says she doesn't know what to say, Brittany is able to tell her that the Holy Spirit is praying for her, interceding at the right hand of the Father.

Often, we are praying that God fixes our words when we botch it, but isn't it cool that He'll still honor our faithfulness and our desire to get it right.

Every conversation is laying groundwork for faith in years to come. 

I have a botched spiritual conversation to share as well about a time talking about asking Jesus into your heart to a kid, which brought on tons of tears and a look of sheer terror. Little did I know his grandfather had recently had open heart surgery, and getting Jesus into your heart was immediately thought to require a surgical procedure. Sheesh.

God is faithful and God is sovereign, and they are ultimately His. He is going to raise them up and use them how He desires for them to be used. They only need one perfect parent, and that's God the Father. They need to see moms and dads on their knees confessing their need for Jesus.

Featured Resource

A Theology for the Church is organized under these traditional theological categories: revelation, God, humanity, Christ, the Holy Spirit, salvation, the church, and last things. 

Each chapter within these sections contains answers to the following four questions: What does the Bible say? What has the church believed? How does it all fit together? How does this doctrine impact the church today?

How do you continue to learn?

Reading, reading, reading.I love to read folks like The Gospel Coalition, the ERLC, and other resources that help us think through issues well. 

It is hard to balance all the things we feel God has called us to do well and faithfully. There's grace for that. We don't need to hold ourselves to a standard of perfection, but be as faithful as we can.