How Long Do You Keep Going When Nothing Changes?

How long do you keep going when nothing seems to change?

What happens when you keep praying, keep hoping, keep showing up—and the breakthrough still doesn’t come?

In this episode of Wine Into Water, we explore the long, exhausting middle seasons of faith: the waiting, the wandering, and the quiet ache of wondering whether God is still moving when everything around us feels unchanged. Together, we wrestle with the tension between trusting God’s promises and living in circumstances that seem to contradict them.

Through stories of Abraham and Sarah, Noah, Elijah, Job, and the Israelites wandering in the desert, we talk about what it means to keep believing when there is no visible evidence that anything is happening. Why does waiting test us so deeply? Why do we start questioning ourselves—and even God—when answers don’t come quickly? And how do we resist the temptation to “help God along” instead of trusting His timing?

Jen shares the deeply personal story of her years-long journey through infertility and IVF, the unexpected moments of hope that carried her through, and the profound ways that season transformed her faith. Lydia reflects on seasons of waiting in work, adoption, and unanswered prayers, including the lessons she learned about surrender, control, and the danger of creating what she calls “an Ishmael”—taking matters into our own hands because waiting has become too painful.

Together, we explore how seasons of waiting often become the places where faith is strengthened most—not because we get what we want immediately, but because we encounter God differently there. We talk about exhaustion, discouragement, isolation, and the very human temptation to believe God has forgotten us. We also reflect on the practical ways we endure those seasons: remembering God’s faithfulness, leaning on community, caring for ourselves, and allowing others to help carry us when we’re too tired to keep holding our arms up alone.

This episode is for anyone who feels stuck in the middle of a prayer that still hasn’t been answered. For the person wondering if they’re foolish for continuing to hope. For anyone tired of wandering in circles while waiting for God to move.

Because maybe faith is not proven in the breakthrough. Maybe it’s formed in the waiting.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Sometimes we pray for the miracles. We wait for the breakthrough, the healing, the answered prayer. And when it doesn't come, when life feels ordinary, heavy, or quiet, we wonder if something is wrong. We read about water turning into wine, but most of us are living in seasons where it feels like the opposite. Where the celebration fades and the glass feels empty. Where faith isn't dramatic, it's dishes in the sink, laundry that never ends, prayers whispered into the silence. But what if the miracle was never the point? What if what we're really longing for isn't the wine, but the living water? The presence of Jesus in the middle of the Monday. The abundance that doesn't depend on circumstances. This is a podcast for seasons that feel unmiraculous. For the questions we carry quietly.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

For the faith that keeps showing up, even when nothing. Welcome to Wine in to Water.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

I'm your co-host, Jen Asklin. And I'm your other co-host, Lydia Rosencreve. We're two women who have been asking questions, nobody seems to be answering. Questions about faith and seasons when life can feel unmiraculous.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

And we kept having these conversations, just the two of us, and we realized we can't be the only ones who are asking these questions.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

So we decided to invite you into the conversation. We're so glad you're here.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

And how in our own lives, even times where we know God is working, how long can you really keep trying to do a thing when you don't see any visible progress being made? Lydia, as you think about this question, what comes up for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Oh, Jen, this one really hits. Um this one hits pretty hard. And it also, I feel like when we start talking about these people who um, you know, 40 years they wandered in the desert or um thinking about Joseph in prison for 20 years, right? Um, it makes me feel very impatient when I'm like, okay, God, it's been three years and nothing's changed, or whatever it is. Um but the truth is I think that we've all experienced some period of time where we were on our knees constantly asking God to change something or bring something or do something. And it was crickets, right? And and we couldn't see anything anything, like no change, or it might even be getting worse, right? Um anything that we could perceive with our senses was saying nothing's happening here. And I think that in some ways, those times are some of the greatest tests of our faith that we have when we can't see God doing anything, and we know that he hears us, um we know that he hasn't forsaken us because he tells us that he will never fail us and he will never forsake us. And yet when we look around, nothing has changed.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Um I'd like maybe go ahead. I I'd maybe even like uh take it a step further, which is that at some point even the people who love you the most begin to think you are completely bananas for still sticking with this thing. Yeah, like I I think about Noah in this. I was thinking when you sorry, I see how crazy he must have looked to everyone else building a boat in the desert for a hundred years, yeah, right? Yeah, and so I think it's not just our own crying out and asking for the thing, but at some point it's the the people around you, the world around you starts to treat you like the crazy person.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

That's right. I mean, it's like, you know, I don't we don't necessarily know exactly how long Job suffered, but like his wife was like, just curse God and die, you know? Um so at some point, yeah, we even have people who are encouraging us to give up on our faith, right? And that's really hard when you're already struggling to keep it. And then the people around you are like, Yeah, God doesn't care or God's not gonna do anything, or do you still believe in God? Are you still praying about this? Do you yeah, I yes, agree. That makes it even harder.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

What's something in your life that you wandered for? And what did you learn in the waiting? Hmm. Good question.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Um I have been in a work situation before where um it would it was definitely not the path that I would have chosen, or you know, some things happened that I wouldn't have wouldn't have been my will. It was definitely not my will. And I kept waiting for God to step in and change things, right? And it's it's cliche, but at the same time, some cliches actually have some truth to them, right? Is there are circumstances where we desperately want God to change the circumstance and God's like, yep, not doing that, I'm gonna change you instead. And I do think there are changes that God sees that the best way for me to get this out of you or to get this into you, whatever it, whichever it is, or if it's both, is for you to be in a circumstance you can't control, you can't change, you can't uh perform your way out of, you can't buy your way out of. Um where you wait on me, and through that I teach you who I am, I teach you who you are, I teach you that um my grace is sufficient even when it doesn't always feel that way. Um I think that there are some lessons that I have learned in waiting that I wouldn't have learned any other way.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Some of those seasons for me is when my faith has grown the most because there was nothing I could physically do. Um I think so between my two children, both my kids are IBF babies. That's fine, it's a wild story, but like both of them are IBF babies. Um, and the first one was hard, but we had figured it out and we had like a bunch of embryos, and so I just assumed like the second one would be like really easy, right? Um, and I think we wrestled with oh god, is this like really how you want us to spend our money? Like, is this really what we are supposed to spend our money on?

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

And I think we got resolution on that question, and we were in a small group at the time. It's wild. I think there were like seven couples, and five of us ended up having very serious fertility issues. And like three of the five of us ended up down a surrogate route, which is wild for like a random small group lunch. That like those are the women God put around us in this season, right? So we figured our first one, and we think the second one's gonna be easy, and like there we had to have done seven or eight cycles in between the two. Like I we transferred our first embryo on my son's first birthday, and we had our second child a week after he turned three.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

So a lot of months in between a lot of months. Um, and it was a period of time where I was on my knees. Like I knew we were supposed to have a second child that was like so clear to me. And I just like God, where are you? Where like where are you in this? Um and I think now, not just about the winks he was giving me along the way, but also the way it changed me as a person to know that like there's a limit to what I am able to do, and his plans will work out exactly the way his plans are supposed to work out. And I like sit here now with a five-year-old and an eight-year-old, and I'm just like, I've I could not have planned it any better. Like, I could not have had any of those other embryos, like they wouldn't be Emmy. And like Emmy is the child we were supposed to raise who will go on to do great things in this world if she can survive my house till she's 18. Um, but like it gave her a fight and determination that that will be used for good in this world, I have no doubt. But I it like when I think about my season of waiting, like it was it was those two years where life seemed to stop with anything other than that. And it is a period of my life where my faith was fortified in ways that like I cannot articulate. Yeah. Not because I got the baby or the answer or any of that, right? But because it was a a season that forced me to slow down and notice him in ways that I never had before.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Sure. And I I mean, and I think you've hit on something, Jen, about why God allows us to go through periods like that. It's because it is those are the times where we remember him. Oh, wait a minute. I'm stuck here. I can't do anything about it. God, you know, um, which is not how it should be, but it just it is. It is when things are going perfectly and and well and you know, we're busy and everything's wonderful. Do we do we stop and spend as much time with him as we do on the times where we're stuck and we're helpless and we're broken. Um I mean, I would say for most of us, that's no, right? Um another thing that I think is I I don't know that this is like an answer to the question of how we keep going, but I think it's important. It's an it was an important lesson that I learned that so it's basically like what not to do in the middle of waiting. Um so I had um I I I don't want to get too much into the story, but and I also want people to be able to think about it in their own um their own light. But basically, there was a time when I was waiting and I felt like I needed to help God along, right? Like, um, and it wasn't a bad thing that I wanted to do, and I did it, and it almost cost me the very thing that I wanted, right? Um, he worked it out, but it taught me a lesson that I have never forgotten, and I call it creating an Ishmael. And so I go back to Sarah and Abraham, um, and they waited a really God promised them they were gonna be the the the mother and father of an entire nation, right? That salvation was gonna come through them. And they waited a really long time for no child, you know, and they're both really old, 190, you know, something like that. And Abraham was like 100 and Sarah was 90, right? And um a legit geriatric pregnancy. Seriously, right? Like, I don't how many of us wouldn't have given up by that point? Sure, you know? Um, and so Sarah takes matters into her own hands and she's like, Well, you know, I need to help God along here. So here, have a baby with my servant. And it ends up horrible going horribly wrong, right? And it still to this day has has created untold strife in our world, yeah, that she made this decision. But basically, she Ishmael was the son that he had with the servant. And so whenever I feel like I need to help God along, um, get ahead of him, I'm tired of waiting. I try to remember that what I don't want to do is create an Ishmael. Because once you do it, you can't undo it. And you you have to live your life the rest of your life, and and potentially generations of your family beyond that have to live with whatever it was that that choice that you made to help God along because you weren't willing to wait for the what he had promised. And that one thing helps me when I'm in a period of waiting, um, that helps me wait because what I absolutely never ever ever want to do is get ahead of him and create an Ishmael.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

I like I think that that same story lives in the wandering in the desert, right? Yeah. Where I think God will provide in his way, in his time, right? But as humans, like I'd be lying if I said I didn't like hoard manna, right? I would have totally wanted to hoard it, searching for it on the seventh day, even though he's given me everything that I need. Absolutely, right? Or um, I don't know, just like not being grateful for the things that he's given while I cry out for the thing that I really want. And then like eating so much quail that I'm now sick and I'm like, okay, fine, I'm never gonna ask you for more again. Um, but I think there's there's this there's this human tendency, right? To want the things that we don't have and to try to take things into our own hands or to ask for abundance that isn't actually abundance, but is bad for us and will just make us physically ill. But I think it there's something just so human about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

And I, you know, I I feel like we s I skipped over you know an important piece of your story too, Jen, which is oftentimes we find at the end of the waiting that there was a really good reason for it. Right. And and it's very hard in the middle of it, but you got Emmy, right? And you know that she was the one you were supposed to have. Um, and I think about times where I've had to wait and I didn't so uh this and and sometimes our waiting isn't about us, right? So um our first adoption, we were headed to get our first two little boys and we got delayed. And it was heartbreaking. Like we, you know, because we had done all this, we were ready, we were packed, we were supposed to go, we had our dates, and then they closed the country down for the whole summer. So the government just like, yeah, we're going on vacation. And I was devastated. It was just a summer, but it was like my little boys were over there, and they were they in my heart, they were mine, and I wanted to go get them, right? But in the meantime, um another family that we were traveling with was considering adopting a little boy who had a severe heart defect. And actually, let me let me go. So they had already agreed to adopt one little boy, perfect, healthy little boy, right? And during the time that we were waiting, this other little boy who needed an operation quickly came available for adoption and they decided to adopt him. And so if we had not been delayed, they would never have had the opportunity to bring him home. And he ended up having life-saving surgery here. I mean, it was it was severe. So on the other side of it, it was so clear why God. I mean, I'm sure there were multiple reasons that God had for having us delayed, but it it was so obvious that we this little boy's life was worth us waiting a summer. Nobody, you know, the our boys were fine, they were well taken care of. Um it's so often that we can't see what the delay is about until we're on the other side. I think what frustrates me about myself is I've seen that so many times, Jen. And yet when I'm in the middle of it again, I have trouble believing that this time is also gonna have that God has a good reason. Because now it feels like, you know, maybe there's not a good reason this time. Maybe God's just being capricious, right? Or, you know, maybe he's punishing me or whatever it is. And it's like, why am I so faithless when God is so faithful? I've seen that he always has a reason, even if he doesn't share it, you know, every single time. There's always a purpose. Why can't I believe that in the middle of the waiting?

SPEAKER_02 21:24

Yeah, there's um I was thinking about it as you were telling your adoption story, but so maybe to your Ishmael story. So I couldn't stay pregnant for whatever reason. And we went down the surrogate route, and I found this lovely woman in Arizona who was going to carry our child. And in like the midst of it, I had a random friend who was like, I think you should go get a second opinion from my doctor. And I was like, Okay, whatever. So I set up time with him, and in the middle, I was a girl's trip to Colorado, and we're Staying with the friend of one of my college friends' mothers, like a woman I've never met before, no association with her. Okay. And I can remember sitting at her fire pit one night and I'm talking to my friends about the surrogate and like showing them pictures. But I'm like, the weirdest thing is I can like feel in my bones that I'm gonna carry a child again. And I don't understand how it's possible after like everything that we've been through. Like I don't get it. And the the friend, the woman who owns the house, like comes out as we're having this conversation and she's like listening in the background. And she finally walks over and she goes, Well, what doctor are you going to get a second opinion with? And I like give her his name and she looks at me and she goes, Oh, tell him I said hello. I was like, What? Turns out, like she lived in Dallas at one point in her life. They had gone through a bunch of fertility treatment, right? And like this had been her doctor. And I was just like, Okay. So whatever. I go, he finds some stuff. He's got some pixie dust he wants to sprinkle on it, some new things that we hadn't tried before. And I'm like, okay, but I'm not letting go of the surrogate. I'm a parallel path both of them because like I just don't trust that this is gonna work out. And I don't want another like two years to go by before like we have our family complete. So I parallel path them, right? And so I get pregnant, but my problem was between that and a heartbeat, like I would lose it. And so we had scheduled our heartbeat um ultrasound, and I was like fully prepared to get what we had gotten for years at this point that like there wasn't gonna be a heartbeat. And as I'm driving to the appointment, I get the signed contract from my lawyer for the surrogate. And I'm like, this is a sign, like she's gonna carry our baby, and I am like prepared to be utterly devastated again. Oh, change and we heard Emmy's heartbeat. And so I walked away from the surrogate and like he gave me this little girl who's like God's gift to this family, despite all the trouble she can cause. But if I think about it, like I had winks from him all along. Yeah. But I walked out of that season trusting him. Like when he makes a promise, he keeps a promise, even if I am like Abraham and Sarah, like I don't understand how this could be true, Lord. Like I hear you and I see what is going on, and like I don't understand how this could be true.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Right. And um a few years later, we were listening to a sermon in church, and the pastor brought out this like glass mason jar. And he's like, the thing about us is we for we're forgetful people. And he uses the example of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. He goes, literally, a man raised his staff and they watched the waters part and they walked across ground that was not even muddy. And a generation later, they've completely forgotten about it. Like God does these miracles in your life, and we forget about them. And so he has this mason jar full of like little trinkets, and he proceeds to take out each trinket and tell the story of what God did in that season of his life.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Well, that is brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

And I just feel like we all need our own mason jars to remind us that we can trust him, that we can like, that like he's got it. And if he's made a promise, like he's gonna make good on his promise. And so I think in my desert seasons and like we've had plenty of them, Emmy's like the most life-changing for me. But I just I wonder what we would put in our mason jar to remind us the next time that we're in the desert.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

I'm gonna have to think about that, but I'm gonna do it. Um because I need it. I need it. Um because I think he also, you know, it's not like we learn a lesson and then we get the same thing again. It's like, oh well, I know how to handle this because I've already learned that lesson. It's like it's like we're in a video game and we just keep going up the next level, right? Um, and so yeah, I can take with me what I learned from the previous lesson, but I got some new lessons coming. And it's sometimes it's real easy to forget what I learned on that last level when all of a sudden I'm facing the new giants, right? That seem completely different. Yeah. Um it's real easy to start panicking and thinking, uh I don't God, where are you? You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

Um where are you in this one? Um Brene Brown has this quote that like our hope is formed in the struggle. It's formed in the discomfort, in the waiting, in the obstacles. Um because those are the times that give you what you need to prepare you for what's ahead. Um and I think you're right, like every level gives us some new lesson that we hadn't learned that we need for whatever is coming next. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

And I'm gonna be just brutally honest here, Jen, because I bet because surely I'm not alone in this. There's gotta be somebody out there who sometimes feels this way. Um, but I sometimes in the waiting, I get tired. I just get exhausted. And I start to believe the lie that God really is done with me. Like he's he's punishing me, he's disappointed in me, he has forgotten me, he is gonna leave me here forever. Um I do, I I just I'm gonna just say that I fall trap, I fall in that trap sometimes. Um, I absolutely do. And it reminds me of Elijah. Um, you know, he had this phenomenal battle against the prophets of Baal, right? Like he killed, he defeated, he humiliated them first, right? With you know, God's power, and then he killed them all. He had this tremendous, tremendous win for God. But he was tired after that. He was exhausted, he was human, and all it took was Jezebel saying, I'm gonna kill you, right? She had no power over him, like God had him. All it took was her saying that for him to run away and hide in a cave and be like, God, I wish I'd never been born. Can you please just kill me? Um and God's like, You need to take a nap and eat a snack. Right? And it's like, I'm not alone in this. If Elijah could experience the same moment of doubt and say, I just had this experience that no one else has ever had of God's power. And yet, literally the same day to be like, God, I I might as well just die. Just take me. Um and God, God wasn't angry with his lack of faith. He wasn't disappointed. He knows that we're human. And he was just like, Yep, here, here's a snack. And then I want you to sleep for a while, right? This journey's been too much for you.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

Yeah, I also think sometimes he gives us the people that we need when we get tired. Like when we just can't keep going. And I don't know if I'm like remembering this exactly right. You probably know better than I, but I think about like when Moses was at the mountain with his hands up and his arms got tired. Yes. And then Aaron came and like helped him hold his arms up. Yep. And I think so often what the enemy does is make you feel like it's just you and you shouldn't be tired, and you can't share that with anyone, and you just need to go into a cave and die, right? And here's God with like, hey, sugar, take a nap, have a little snack, yep, and then phone a friend. That's right. Because like you're not meant to carry it all on your own. Like, sustain yourself, and I'm gonna give you people who will help lift up your arms when you get tired.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

That's right. That is exactly right. And I mean, Jen, I'm not sure that we could have a better answer to how do you keep going when it doesn't seem to be changing, right? Is um the mason jar. Right. So number one is you have to remember who God is. You have to remember what he's done. Um, that is where we get our faith. And God, how many times in the Bible does he say remember, right? I mean, a ton of times. He makes them build altars, you know, stack some rocks because he knows they're gonna forget. And so, why do we think we don't need a stack of rocks too to remember all of the good things that God has done in our life? And so I really love that. I mean, I think that is such a practical suggestion of how to get through something, is just having tangible reminders of God's goodness. Um, and I I really am gonna do that. Um I think also it's actually taking care of ourselves, right? Um, it's it's eating, it's exercising, it's actually resting, um, remembering that we're human and and taking care of our our physical needs. And then, yes, remembering that we're not alone, because that is, I mean, that is certainly one of the enemy's number one tactics, at least with me, and I don't think I'm the only one on this. You are not allowed, is to tell me that nobody cares. You know, stop the pity party, Lydia. Nobody cares. You're all by yourself. You gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you gotta fix this. Um, nobody's coming, nobody's gonna answer your text. Yeah. And it's um, he, I mean, his tactic has always been isolation and it always will be. Um, so yes, remembering that you have people that will stand beside you and pray for you. And um God has always been about community. I mean, he's the Trinity, right? So he's everything for him is community, and the devil's tactic is isolation. And so reaching out, asking for prayer, I think absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Um, so I think I also think like we get to be those people too who show up.

unknown 34:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

When it's uncomfortable and awkward, and where the person doesn't want people around, like we also get to be the people who show up, like we get to be the hands and feet. Um, and we don't have to be perfect, right? But I think there's something to phoning a friend when you feel like you're in the cave and wanting to die, and also being the friend who shows up.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

And those are the times typically that I forget about my own misery, is when I'm totally with someone else who's suffering and I'm just there for them. Um and so no doubt that's God's intention for us.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

I agree. Should we pray over our audience before we leave? Definitely. You want to do it this time?

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Sure. Lord, thank you. Um thank you for the reminders that you are always with us, that you will never leave us, never fail us, never forsake us. And Lord, you have a purpose in every season of waiting that we have had to walk through and will walk through. Thank you for reminding us that we also don't have to do it alone. Um, that you've created us for community and that we we can call on each other and then we also can make sure we're there for each other. Um Lord help us and help our audience, God, in the middle of waiting, help them not to create an Ishmael that they will regret and have to deal with for the rest of their lives, that wouldn't have to be there if we just remembered how faithful you are and that you're there, and that you have a purpose and a plan. Um and I just asked Lord that you would protect all of our audience members until we come back together again.