A little over 13 months ago, I journaled — and “arted” — John 16:20–24 for the first time. I was drawing from a place of fresh grief. My mother had died just three weeks earlier, and I was still relearning how to function as a competent human. I had also just decided to give this whole “Scripture art” thing a real try, despite not really having drawn much of anything in the 48 years I’d been alive. I didn’t know it at the time, but this one practice would prove to be a major catalyst for spiritual growth.
Here’s the first version of this same image.
I was proud of that original attempt. I still am. It was the first time I’d ever drawn a mother holding a baby, and it actually looked like a mother holding a baby. I don’t despise that small beginning (Zechariah 4:10). It was honest. Real.
But when I drew the same passage again this week, I realized something. The mother and child have more life now. More tenderness. More presence.
And maybe that’s because I have more of all of those things inside me than I did a year ago, so soon after the death of my mother.
Grief has softened me. Healing has deepened my search for truth and beauty. And somewhere along the way — with more than a little help from my resident 17‑year‑old art teacher — my hands learned new ways to express what my heart has been learning.
Apparently, you can teach an old dog new tricks.
But the most surprising part wasn’t the advancing artistic expression. It was my new understanding of the Scripture itself – the way it suddenly opened up in a way it never had before.
The Passage Hit Different This Time
We hear “ask, and you will receive” (John 16:24) all the time. It’s one of the most quoted lines in the Gospels — usually pulled out of context and used as a kind of spiritual vending‑machine promise.
But when I revisited the passage this week, something I had never noticed before practically jumped off the page:
Right before Jesus says, “ask and receive,” He says, “You won’t ask anymore” (John 16:23).
That’s the part we skip. The part we don’t preach. The part that doesn’t fit our God‑as-Great-Genie-in-the-Bottle-of-the-Universe theology.
But it’s exactly the part that changes everything.
Prayer Doesn’t Stop, But the Nature of Prayer Changes
Jesus isn’t telling His disciples to stop praying. He’s telling them that once He rises, the Spirit comes, and they finally understand who He is and what He’s doing, their relationship with God will shift.
They can stop asking like outsiders trying to get God’s attention. They can start living like people who already share in God’s life. Because they do.
They won’t have to grasp for answers. They won’t have to beg for clarity. They won’t have to plead for direction. Because the Spirit inside them will make God’s work knowable from the inside.
This is not transactional prayer. This is transformational prayer.
It’s not “God, fix this. Give me that. Change this situation.” It’s “God, change me. Let Your will be done in me. Give me what You want to give. Whatever I need that will make me more like Jesus.”
This is the kind of prayer that emerges from spiritual surrender. The kind that grows only after seasons of sorrow, confusion, and being stretched beyond what you thought you could bear.
The kind that comes from maturity.
Eventually, the Questions Stop
I once told my pastor that I would always have Bible questions. But soon after I started engaging with Scripture through art, the questions stopped. I didn’t need to wonder or worry because I was experiencing God in a new way. Using a new form of creativity to express the image of my Creator.
I was learning to trust His heart by tapping into a new facet of His character, as expressed through the work of my mind, heart, and hands. I was growing as an artist, of course, because how could I not? I’ve never seriously drawn anything before in my life. But I was also growing spiritually. Growing in my relationship with Him. Growing into our shared life.
And I think that’s when the questions stop. Or, at least, they don’t seem quite so urgent anymore. Not because God stops speaking. If anything, He speaks more often and more deeply as we grow.
We stop asking because we’re no longer confused. No longer afraid. We stop asking because we know — deeply, quietly, and internally — that He is already working in whatever circumstance we’re worried about.
And that trust in Him brings a kind of joy nothing can take away. The same joy Jesus promised when He said, “Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away” (John 16:22).
Maybe That’s Why My Art Changed
The mother I drew 13 months ago was holding a child with trembling hands — hands that were still learning and unsure. Not unlike my own hands at the time.
The mother I drew this week is holding a child with gentleness, confidence, and peace.
Both drawings are true. The first one reflected where I was at that moment. The second one reflects where I am now. And, instead of the shakiness of uncertainty and doubt, it carries the same message Jesus gave to His disciples:
Joy comes after sorrow. Clarity comes after confusion. Maturity comes after surrender.
And nothing will take My joy away from you because you belong to Me.
And when you rest in the safety of His arms, knowing you are exactly where you belong, all the questions fade away.
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