A winter field looks dead to everyone except the farmer who planted it.

From the road, a bare field and a dead field look identical. The only person who can tell the difference is the one who put something in the ground, since he knows what is under there and what month it is. Other people will look at a flat stretch of your life and assume nothing is coming. God planted it and is not confused by the season.

Be careful whose reading of your life you adopt during a slow year. Most people are judging the surface from a moving car. Keep doing the buried work and let the visible part arrive on its own schedule.