‘Who is the Holy Spirit?’ by Claire Lynch - 6 July 2025

Can we get to know God’s Holy Spirit and the role he wants to play in our lives? Claire Lynch shares experience of this, along with what the Bible and contemporary authors have written, including Carl McColman and Richard Rohr. The Holy Spirit brings nourishing fruit, remarkable gifts and the recognisable character of Jesus to life today, through people around us and, if we are open to this, through us too.

How can we do this in practice? This talk contains lots of examples and ends with a contemplative exercise to help us focus on the Holy Spirit.

Introduction

Good morning!

Did you know??…

According to Times of India - Sharks have such an exceptional sense of smell that they are capable of detecting a single drop of blood in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

The platypus has a rare sense called electroreception, which allows it to detect the electrical fields produced by muscle contractions of it’s prey, such as shrimps and worms, even in murky waters.

Elephants have a highly developed sense of smell and hearing. They can detect low-frequency sounds across miles, allowing them to communicate with each other and sense changes in the environment.

And there’s more, there’s so many exceptional senses that different animals possess, but just for clarity, cows cannot sense when it’s about to rain and therefore lie down!!

I’ve been telling my kids for years, that this is how to tell of it’s raining, but apparently there is absolutely no scientific evidence to suggest this at all.

According to the Dairy Alliance, they say. “ Yes, cows lie down when it’s going to rain. They also lie down when it’s going to be sunny, partly cloudy, and every other forecast you can think of.” Apparently cows just happen to lie down!!

For humans, we often talk about someone having a sixth sense, that strong intuition or feeling that something is true without conscious reasoning, something that doesn’t rely on our 5 traditional senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste.

As people who believe that God speaks to us, we may feel we have a sense of what God might be saying or doing, even though we can’t physically see him or audibly hear him.

You may have said yourself or heard someone say, “I sense the Holy Spirit is doing this or that..” or “I sense the Holy Spirit is leading me in a certain direction.” You may be familiar with the phrase, “…to look for what the Holy Spirit is doing.”

I wonder if you’ve ever thought, “I haven’t got a clue what the Holy Spirit is doing!”

When someone says they see the Spirit resting on someone, I wonder if you’re really honest with yourself, whether you’ve ever thought to yourself that maybe the person is making it up! because you see absolutely nothing! I have thought that before on the odd occasion!

Have you ever felt a tad confused, when trying to look for the work of the Spirit?!

But the Bible says that the Holy Spirit is given to us as our guide, our helper, our counsellor.

In John chapter 14, Jesus says to his disciples:

“and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever - the Spirit of truth” (v16)

And in verse 26

“But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

So how do we hear what the Holy Spirit is teaching us, how do we sense how he is leading, what he is saying and doing?

In order to properly understand and recognise what someone maybe saying and doing, it’s easier if we know them, if we really know them.

This talk today is part of a boxset series, called “what is God like?” - because what we understand about what God is like - his character and his nature - affects everything -the way we relate to God, see ourselves, interact with each other and our world.

Last time, we began to look at the Trinity -the belief that God is 3 persons in one. God being three in one says an awful lot about the type of God that he is. If you haven’t heard that talk, I’d encourage you to go back and listen to it.

So following on from that - I want to delve a little deeper into the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit - to understand more of what he is like, so that we can get better at hearing him, sensing what he is doing in our own lives and in our world around us.

So today, the question we are exploring is…

Who is the Holy Spirit and how can I sense, and join with, what he is doing in my life and in our world?

So first of all as the backdrop for what we are exploring today, I want to remind ourselves of where we landed after the last talk.

Each person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit included, would not be who there are without their relationship to the others. So the Father is Father to the Son, the Son, the son of the Father, and the Spirit, the Spirt of both the Father and the Son. It’s their relationship that defines them. They are distinct persons and yet they are absolutely inseparable from each other. They are who they are together. They are always together and they always work together.

One way that theologians have described the relationships between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are as a divine circle dance.

Where each person of the trinity knows and love each other and glorifies each other. They commune with each other and defer to each other, not one more significant or important than another. Each person envelops and encircles the others. A continual outpouring and infilling from each person of the trinity to the another.

Nothing can stop the flow of divine love between them. And this flow is not limited to the three persons of the Trinity, it overflows to each of us! Each of us is invited into this dance. All of creation is invited into the dance.

So this is the backdrop for what we are exploring today

For some, the Holy Spirit is the mysterious one of the trinity. It’s relatively easy to picture God the Father and Jesus the son - but the Holy Spirit, that’s a tricky one!

Partly because most of the biblical metaphors for the spirit are impersonal, like wind or fire, breathe and life. The Holy Spirit is associated with oil or water and even pictured as a dove.

Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testament

In the Old Testament, we see the Spirit was understood in two main ways.

Firstly, the Spirit of God is portrayed as the power of God, the mode of his activity in the world, not a distinct person.

The Hebrew word ruach, that we usually translate as “spirit” had essentially 3 meanings: wind, breath and life.

Secondly, in the Old Tetsament, the spirit of God is portrayed as coming upon someone for a particular task or period and then departs.

Although there doesn’t appear to be a permanent presence of the spirit in the Old Testament, there is an expectation that this will change, and we see this in 2 prophetic messages:

Firstly, in Ezekiel:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Ezekiel 36:26-27.

And secondly in Joel:

I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. Joel 2:28-29.

Now, we should remember here, that where we see the word spirit in the Old Testament and also the term Holy Spirit, which actually only occurs twice in the OT (Isaiah 63:10-11 and Psalm 51:13) that this is referring to the power and presence of God, his actions in the world.

It would be a mistake to read in that the writers are meaning the third person of the trinity as we understand the Holy Spirit today.

You may remember from the last talk on the Trinity, that central to the Jewish faith is the belief that there is only one true God - which was in stark contrast to the surrounding religions which believed that there were multiple gods. In this context, it was important to get across the message, that there is only one true God.

So in the Old Testament, where we read God’s Spirit, this was understood by the writer, more impersonally, in terms of God’s power and presence.

But the New Testament is when we see God deciding that “now is the time” to start to explain himself in trinitarian terms. Through people’s experience of Jesus, their experience of the Holy Spirit and through rereading the scriptures (which form the Old Testament for us) with fresh eyes in light of those experiences, this understanding and belief in a trinitarian God grew.

And we see some of this understanding in the pages of the New Testament. On a number of occasions, Jesus is recorded as having spoken about the Holy Spirit and Paul’s letters are filled with references to the Holy Spirit, however it took a few centuries before the doctrine of the Trinity was fully articulated and agreed upon in the Nicene Creed of 381 AD which we talked about last time.

In the New Testament, instead of the Hebrew word Ruach, we have the Greek word pneuma which is not only used to mean wind, breath or life but on the vast majority of occasions in the New testament, pneuma is directly referring to the spirit of God - we see various phrases like Holy Spirit, Spirit of holiness, the Spirit of the son, the Spirit of life, the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of Jesus.

In relation to the outpouring of the Spirit on all people that was prophesied in the book of Joel and happened on the day of Pentecost in the book of Acts - we see the beginnings of this in the life and ministry of Jesus, where every significant event of his life is marked by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. It’s like Jesus is the forerunner for this prophetic fulfilment.

And Jesus implies the permanent presence of the Holy Spirit with us now in his closing words before he ascends into heaven, when he says “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age,” (Matthew 28:20)

What is the Holy Spirit like?

So what is the Holy Spirit like?

As mysterious as the Holy Spirit may sometimes feel, holding the core belief that God is one, we actually know more about him than we may think.

Colossians 1:15 tells us that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” and Hebrews 1:3 says that “Jesus is the exact representation of God’s being”

In John 14:16, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send is “another” just like him.

In both Acts 16 and Romans 8 the Holy Spirit is called “the Spirit of Jesus.”

So Jesus has revealed to us not only what God the Father is like but also what the Holy Spirit is like. Because the Holy Spirit is God, he has the character and nature of God, and therefore he has the same character and nature as Jesus. The Holy Spirit has the same agenda as Jesus and the same qualities as Jesus.

A common phrase in the Christian world, is to say “what would Jesus do?”. What Jesus would do, is just the same as what the Holy Spirit would do.

Understanding the Holy Spirit starts with understanding him as a person.

Theologian and author Millard Erickson says, “The Holy Spirit is the point at which the Trinity becomes personal to the believer.”

He goes on to say:

We often tend to think of the Father as transcendent and far off in heaven; similarly, the Son may seem far removed in history and thus also relatively unknowable. But the Holy Spirit is active within the lives of believers; he is resident within us. He is the particular person of the Trinity through whom the entire Triune Godhead currently works in us.

The Holy Spirit is the one who puts into effect the will of God and the purposes of God. He’s the one who heals and frees and transforms lives and situations. The Holy Spirit is the one who indwells us and anoints us. He’s the one with comforts, guides, convicts and teaches us.

Now it is worth just adding here, that although we refer to the Holy Spirit as he, I am not saying the Holy Spirit is biologically male. We’ve covered this in one of the previous talks, God has both masculine and feminine attributes, and a specific gender is not a box we can put God in.

But, because God, for whatever reason, chose to reveal himself through the male, human Jesus - and wanting to communicate the personal, intimate nature of the Holy Spirit, rather than use it or they (which would also be confusing with the whole three in one thing), it makes most sense to refer to the Holy Spirit as him.

To be fair, no term for the indescribable cosmic creator of the universe is ever going to be fully adequate - so bear with me on this one!

The fruits and gifts of the Spirit

Now I just want to take a moment to talk about the gifts of the Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit that the apostle Paul refers to in his letters to the early Church, that we find in the New Testament.

Gifts of the spirit include things like wisdom, prophecy, healing, faith, miraculous signs, speaking in tongues which is Spirit inspired language that is not naturally your own. There’s also gifts like generosity, administration, teaching and service and there’s more.

Paul explains that gifts are given to each of us, for the good of everyone. The gifts are not given for the person who delivers them, but for the person who receives them.

For example, if I pray for someone to be healed and they are or I give a prophetic word of encouragement and they are encouraged, I am like the drainpipe through which the rain falls - I can’t take credit for making the rain, I can only take pleasure in delivering it.

John Wimber who founded the Vineyard movement, taught that the gifts are “situational”. In other words, we can can ask God for any spiritual gift if and as the situation requires it. As if we had a tool bag to hand, and we could simply reach in and grab the one we need.

The gifts don’t belong to us, but each of us can access them as the need arises. And in that way, everyone gets to play! Everyone is included in this.

When we see someone who seems to be particularly good at gift, it’s normally because they’ve practised it.

Planted right in the middle of 1Corinthians Chapter 12 and 14, two key passages on Spiritual gifts, is of course Chapter 13! No surprise there!

But Chapter 13 contains the well known description of love, which we often hear at weddings. I don’t think it’s any coincidence or accident that it’s there - right at the heart of Spiritual Gifts, there must be love.

1 Cor 13 1-8, Paul says:

“If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”

Love is a fruit of the Spirit, a sign of his presence and Paul goes on in his letter to the Galatians to describe what the other fruits of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life and a community’s life looks like:

Paul names them in Galatians as:

“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control”. Galatians 5:22-23

Think about those for a moment, think about where you see these.

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control

Where we see this fruit, we know that is where the Spirit is.

So back to our original question:

Who is the Holy Spirit (we’ve talked about that) and how can I sense, and join with, what he is doing in my life and in our world?

So let’s remind ourselves of the image of the divine circle dance, that I mentioned at the beginning, an image of the relationships between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Where each person of the trinity knows and love each other and glorifies each other. Each person envelops and encircles the others. A continual outpouring and infilling from each person of the trinity to the another.

Nothing can stop the flow of divine love between them.

And that flow of divine love, that overflows, invites each of us, all of creation, into the dance.

Carl McColman a contemplative writer and teacher puts it like this:

‘God is in us, because we are in Christ. As members of the mystical body, Christians actually partake in the divine nature of the Trinity. We don’t merely watch the dance, we dance the dance. We join hands with Christ and the Spirit flows through us and between us and our feet move always in the loving embrace of the Father. In that we are members of the mystical body of Christ, we see the joyful love of the Father through the eyes of the Son. And with every breath, we breathe the Holy Spirit.’

I love that. We don’t merely watch the dance, we dance the dance.

Richard Rohr, in his book The Divine Dance, attempts to describe what taking part in the dance looks like.

He suggests that this continual infilling and outpouring of love between the trinity, that overflows to you and I, is the life force of everything, the life energy between each and every being - which we might call love.

To help us visualise this Trinitatrian Flow of love he describes where he sees it in every day things, he says:

“every vital impulse, every force toward the future, every creative momentum, every loving surge, every dash toward beauty, every running toward truth ……every bit of ambition for humanity and the earth, for wholeness and holiness, is the eternally-flowing life of the Trinitarian God………..This triune God allows you, impels you to live easily with God everywhere and all the time: in the budding of a plant, the smile of a gardener, the excitement of a teenage boy over his new girlfriend, the tireless determination of a research scientist, the pride of a mechanic over his hidden work under the bonnet…..the tenderness with which eagles feed their chicks and the downward flow of every mountain stream……”

and he goes on.

So for me, entering into the dance, living in the flow is some of what is means to sense the Holy Spirit, to sense and join in with what he is doing in me and in the world around me.

Living in the flow, is about opening my eyes, to see the signs of the Holy Spirit’s presence everywhere I go and with everyone I meet.

So I look for love, for joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. And I trust that where I find them, the Holy Spirit is present too, because where else have those things come from?

I haven’t always recognised them as signs of the Holy Spirit in this way, but now I do it’s changed my life. It’s given me a lot more love in my heart, it delights me, repeatedly throughout each day to see God at work and it fills me with awe at how good God is.

When I recognise this flow around me, I feel at peace, I experience that joy, I feel love and compassion - I am open to receive and to give. I feel connected to God and to others. I have time, I can be present, I can be gracious and patient, and it doesn’t feel like a chore.

Acknowledging this flow, being open to the Holy Spirit living in and through us, joining in the dance is something we get to do every minute of our day, if we want to.

Contemplative walks

One thing that I was introduced to a few years ago, through going on spiritual retreats, was the practice of going for contemplative walk in nature.

Prior to this, being an introvert, I had thought the best way for me to connect with God was to simply be on my own, in my room, reading my Bible, praying or journalling.

That’s not a bad thing, but I’ve since discovered, the problem for me with that is that I am very much limited to what is in my mind, what is in my immediate surroundings. But when I began to embark on this new spiritual practice I discovered a whole new way of connecting with God. I began to widen my gaze and open my eyes to everything around me.

Romans 1:20

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.

Going for a contemplative walk doesn’t have to take a long time out of your day. We would go for just 45 mins - but the intention is that you slow yourself down, that you wind down, have no agenda - it’s not about physical exercise or reaching a certain destination. In fact, its recommended that you walk with your hands behind your back, like you might imagine a monk doing, and because your arms aren’t swinging freely, you can’t walk as fast!!

But the point is, to open up all your senses to your surroundings to become aware of God’s presence with you through creation. So being attentive to anything you may not only see but also hear, smell or feel.

So it may be that you notice a line of tiny ants marching across your path or the sound of a bird calling or the smell of freshly cut grass - whatever it may be - you pause to drink it in, to notice the detail, to contemplate and enjoy it, recognising that it carries the very DNA of it’s creator.

And in that moment the Holy Spirit so often begins to speak and make his presence felt, which is something he loves to do.

If you want to give it a try - here is a resource explaining how to do a contemplative walk.

Richard Rohr says,

“Once we know that the entire physical world around us, all of creation, is both the hiding place and the revelation place for God, this world becomes home, safe, enchanted, offering grace to all who look deeply.”

I want to finish with a little story…

A few years ago, at the end of a long day, I had just finished an Aldi shop with one of my kids, Jake he was about 9 at the time. And as we walked out of the shop, we noticed an elderly chap with two full bags of shopping, just about to load them onto his bike that he’d locked up outside the shop.

As we unloaded our shopping into the car, it became increasingly obvious that the elderly gentleman had lost his key…he was patting his pockets, acting more and more exasperated as the time went on.

Jake noticed this and suggested we go and help - now I have to be totally honest with you, I was tired, I had other kids waiting at home, I really wasn’t up for this! But my Jake persisted and not wanting to appear too cold and heartless, I reluctantly agreed to just 5 minutes of looking for the key.

I was only going to only go round the first part of the busy supermarket because we really needed to get back. So Jake and I met up after a few minutes of searching, no joy, me, very ready to go home, and one more time my Jake persisted, “let’s just look down here mum” - so in the middle of the supermarket (feeling like we are literally looking for a needle in a haystack) Jake walks straight down to the very bottom of the long aisle, me in tow, to the refrigerated section, and right down below, tucked next to the fridge is a little black key.

We couldn’t believe our eyes, with no idea whether this actually was the key - we ran out of the shop as fast as we could, to find the elderly gentleman who was just walking away out of the carpark, carrying his bags, no bike in tow - we ran up - “we think we might have found your key!”

And it was his key!

Now I tell you this because I think this funny little story encapsulates what we are talking about today.

I wasn’t open to the flow that day, but Jake, Jake was. It was love and kindness that compelled Jake to help that man. Nothing else - he had nothing to gain. Fruits of the Spirit. Jake was open.

Whether Jake realised it or not, I believe the Holy Spirit led him to that key - Honestly! It’s nothing short of a miracle that we found it, a tiny little key tucked away under a fridge in a busy supermarket! But Jake was open and was led by the promptings of the Holy Spirit - it wasn’t hard for him.

The Holy Spirit is our helper, he’s there for us doing just the same things we would expect Jesus to do. He was there for that man that day. Whether that man realised it or not, God cared enough for him, to send a little 9 year old boy, who was open to the flow, to go and help him.

So I think that’s something of what it looks like to sense the Holy Spirit and join with him in what he’s doing in our lives and in our world.

Contemplation

So I just want to finish today with leading us in a short contemplation, giving space for us, with no agenda, but to simply open ourselves to connect with the Holy Spirit afresh and see what he wants to do.

This is a contemplation that Liz Nixon, our business manager (she has many hats!) shared with us at our staff meeting this week.

7-Minute Contemplative Prayer: "Held by the Trinity"

Preparation (1 minute)

“Place yourself before God as one who is deeply loved.”

Find a quiet space. Sit upright or kneel, hands open if comfortable.

Take a few deep breaths.

Ask God for this grace:
“Lord, let me know Your love — the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — in a personal and living way.”

1. See the Trinity Gazing on You (1 minute)

“Imagine the Three Divine Persons looking over the whole earth... and then fixing Their gaze upon you.”

In your imagination, picture the Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — united in love.

Picture them gazing upon the world… and then gently turning their full attention to you.

Look at them as best you can and ask:


What do you see when they look at me? 
What stirs in your heart?

Stay here, letting yourself be looked upon — not judged, but loved.

2. Enter the Conversation Within the Trinity (2 minutes)

“Let us make them … in our image.”

Imagine a conversation within the Trinity before you were born.
They are deliberating together, in joy, about your creation.

Father speaks: “Let’s give them My delight and tenderness.”


Son responds: “Let Me walk with them. I will carry their wounds.”


Spirit adds: “And I will dwell in them. I will be their breath and flame.”

Pause. Feel the mystery: the Trinity chose you, desired you, and delights in your existence.

Let these words rise in your heart: 
“I am not an accident. I am a desire of God.”

3. Gaze on the Son Who Enters the World for You (2 minutes)

“Look at what the Trinity did for love of you.”

Now imagine Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, saying yes to becoming human.

Picture His birth, His teaching, His suffering, His death… all for love of you.

Imagine His eyes meeting yours from the cross — no condemnation, only deep, knowing love.

Let Him speak to you:
“Everything I have, I give for you. I came so you could be with us — forever.”

Let yourself feel the cost of love… and the joy that it was given freely.

4. Receive the Spirit of Intimacy (1 minute)

“The Spirit prays in us with groans too deep for words.”

Imagine the Spirit resting in your chest, close as your next breath.

The Spirit prays in you, breathes with you, cries with you, and rejoices with you.

Ask the Spirit: 
“Teach me how to live in this love. Make me aware of it always.”

Sit quietly. Rest in that loving Presence.

Closing Prayer (30 seconds)

End with this prayer of surrender, in the spirit of St. Ignatius:

“Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,

my memory, my understanding, and my entire will.

All I have and call my own.
You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is Yours; do with it what You will.

Give me only Your love and Your grace.

That is enough for me.”

🕊 Final Grace:

Spend the last few seconds in silence. Allow this truth to settle deep within:

The Trinity doesn’t just love you. They delight in you.


And they invite you to live daily in their joy.

Book resource

“The Divine Dance - The Trinity And Your Transformation” by Richard Rohr

Our talks about the Trinity

Explore the whole series