There are seasons when the Christian life feels like coarse winter soil—hard beneath the surface, quiet above it. We pray, we wait, we repent, we hope, and yet we wonder if anything is happening at all. Into that weary, waiting heart the Lord speaks with the steady confidence of heaven: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth… so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty…” (Isaiah 55:1