I want to talk to the faithful ones.
I want to talk to the ones who have been in the process — who have received a word, carried a prophecy, maybe even felt the oil poured over them, and yet you’re still doing what feels like an ordinary job in an ordinary place, wondering when the moment is finally going to come. I want to talk to the ones who have said to God, “Lord, when will You use me?” I want to talk to some faithful people.
Because I believe there is something I need to say to you- something that will change how you see your life, your assignment, and the season you are in right now. The message is simple, and it will set you free if you let it in:
“The anointing always comes before the opportunity. Preparation always comes before the confrontation.”
That is not a platitude. That is the pattern of God throughout all of Scripture. And it is the pattern He is walking you through right now.
The Anointing Came First
In 1 Samuel 16, God sends the prophet Samuel to the house of Jesse to anoint the next king of Israel. Samuel walks in, looks at Jesse’s sons one by one- strong, impressive, tall, and each time, God says, “No. Not this one.” Finally Samuel asks Jesse, “Are these all your sons?” And Jesse says, almost as an afterthought: “Well, there is the youngest. He’s out in the field keeping the sheep.”
David wasn’t even invited to the gathering. He was in the field. He was doing the ordinary work. He didn’t know what was about to happen. He didn’t know that Samuel was looking for him. He was just faithful.
And then he’s brought in, still smelling like the field, probably- and the Bible says Samuel takes the oil and anoints him, and from that day forward, the Spirit of the Lord came upon David with power.
But here’s what I need you to understand: David went back to the sheep after that. He didn’t go straight to a palace. He didn’t get handed a crown or a throne or an army. He went back to what he had always done. He was anointed — and he was still keeping sheep.
“So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David.” — 1 Samuel 16:13
That is you. That is your story. You have been anointed. You have been called. You have received the word of the Lord over your life. And right now you are keeping the sheep. You are doing the work nobody sees. You are faithful in the field. And you wonder why the big moment hasn’t come yet.
The answer is: the anointing always comes before the moment. The oil comes before the opportunity. That’s the divine pattern. Don’t despise it. Don’t fight it. That’s the process.
Don’t Abandon the Sheep
Fast forward to 1 Samuel 17. Saul’s army is facing the Philistines on the battlefield. For forty days, Goliath has stood in the valley and taunted the armies of the living God- morning and evening, the same giant, the same taunt, and the entire army of Israel, including David’s brothers, has been paralyzed by fear.
Then Jesse calls David in from the field and gives him an errand. Take bread and cheese to your brothers. Go check on them. Come back and tell me how they are.
Now I want you to notice something the Bible doesn’t skip over. It says David left early in the morning- and before he left, he gave the sheep to a keeper.
He didn’t abandon his sheep to go see the battle. He didn’t drop everything the moment opportunity sounded interesting. He made provision for what he was already responsible for, and then he went.
“David did not abandon one responsibility in order to step into another. That is the mark of a man, or a woman, ready for promotion.”
Let me be honest with you. One of the greatest reasons God has not yet released the next level of your assignment is because when you received the prophecy, the anointing, the laying on of hands, you thought it meant you could leave what you didn’t like doing. You thought it meant the sheep days were over.
But God was watching whether you would keep your sheep.
I’ll tell you something personal. When I was pastoring a growing church, I was also cleaning floors. I was cleaning my parishioners’ toilets. I was throwing newspapers. I did whatever I had to do because my husband and I needed income, and I refused to abandon one responsibility just because God had put something else in my heart. I was anointed. My church was growing. And I was still cleaning floors.
If you knew everything I’m still responsible for right now, the things God has told me I cannot let go of even as He keeps opening new doors- you would understand that the anointing doesn’t get you out of the sheep. It multiplies your responsibilities. He has to enlarge you to carry more.
So keep your sheep. Do it with excellence. Because the way you handle what’s in your hand right now is what qualifies you for what He’s putting in your hand next.
Ordinary Acts, Defining Moments
David arrived at the battlefront carrying bread and cheese. Not a weapon. Not a strategy. An errand his father had given him.
And as he was speaking to his brothers, Goliath stepped out and gave his challenge. And everything changed.
That bread-and-cheese errand placed David in the right location at the right moment to hear the right thing. His ordinary act of obedience brought him to a defining moment.
“Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed.” — 1 Samuel 17:20
I think about the most massive doors that have ever opened in my life. Almost none of them were the result of some extraordinary, highly strategic move. They were ordinary moments, a conversation I didn’t plan, a visit I almost postponed, a person God kept putting across my path. An invitation to serve when I would have rather been comfortable.
Some of the greatest activations in your life will begin with things that look completely ordinary. Don’t be fooled by how something appears on the surface. Don’t dismiss the small yes because you’re waiting on the big one.
I was nineteen years old and I had half a turkey and a yes.
I went down to the local community and started feeding people. Half a turkey. That’s what I had. That was the yes I gave God in that moment. And that simple act of obedience, that ordinary yes, has now grown into one of the largest food programs in America, touching over five billion dollars in relief.
“Never despise the size of your yes. God is not looking for how big your offering is- He is looking for the purity of your obedience.”
Your yes doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be real. Give God what you have, where you are, and watch what He does with it.
When You’re Activated, You Hear Differently
Here’s what happened when David arrived at the battle: the armies of Israel heard Goliath, and they ran. Fled. Were terrified. They had been listening to this giant for forty days, and every time they heard him, it produced the same result, paralysis and fear.
But when David heard Goliath, something rose up on the inside of him that had not risen up in any of those experienced soldiers. The Bible says in 1 Samuel 17:24 that “when the men of Israel saw Goliath, they fled from him in great fear.” And in the very next moment, David said:
“Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” — 1 Samuel 17:26
The same words reached everyone’s ears. But they did not produce the same response in everyone’s heart. Because David was activated. And when you are activated, you hear what others hear- but you interpret it differently. You see what everyone else sees- but you understand it differently.
David wasn’t measuring the giant against himself. He was measuring the giant against God. He recognized that this wasn’t a personal battle, it was a battle over the name of the Lord. Goliath wasn’t just taunting Saul’s army. He was defying God.
And that bothered David in a way it had not bothered anyone else.
I’ll be honest- there are things in our world right now that bother me. There are cultural Goliaths standing in the valley, morning and evening, taunting the people of God. And I’ll say plainly: when God’s people stop being troubled by what is troubling to God, we have lost our activation.
You shouldn’t be able to hear things that defy the name of the Lord and feel nothing. The anointing on your life should make you hear differently. It should stir something inside you that says, “This is not right. I can’t walk away from this.”
Sometimes the activation you’ve been waiting for is not going to come in a quiet room with worship music playing. It’s going to come when you hear something that angers you so deeply, so righteously, that you cannot stay silent. That anger, that holy discontent, is the sound of the anointing waking up on the inside of you.
The Field Prepares You for the Battlefield
When David stood before Saul and said, “Let me go fight this giant,” Saul did what any reasonable military commander would do: he tried to talk him out of it. “You’re just a boy. Goliath has been a warrior since he was young. This doesn’t make sense.”
And David said something that I want you to remember for the rest of your life. He said: “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them.”
“The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” — 1 Samuel 17:37
The lion and the bear did not feel like preparation at the time. They felt like trouble. They felt like attacks. They felt like setbacks in the middle of a routine day of keeping sheep.
But when David stood before Saul, he could look back and see that God had been teaching him something in those battles. He had been developing strength, courage, and trust in God that he would need for the battle in the valley.
Everything you have been going through, everything that felt like an interruption or an attack, God was teaching you something in it. He was building something in you. He was forming a kind of strength and faith in your spirit that you are going to need, because the battles ahead are bigger than the ones behind.
“You are not wasted. You are not forgotten. You are being prepared.”
Don’t discount your history with God. Your history matters. What you’ve come through matters. Every lion. Every bear. Every moment you thought would break you- it was preparation. That’s not a religious platitude. That is the testimony of David, and it is the testimony of every person who has been anointed before their moment arrived.
When Your Brothers Question You
Here’s something the story of David teaches us that we don’t often talk about: the first opposition David faced wasn’t from Goliath. It was from his own brother.
When David started asking questions about the battle and expressing righteous anger over Goliath’s defiance, his oldest brother Eliab turned on him. He said, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”
David had left his sheep with a keeper. He had obeyed his father. He was moved by genuine righteous anger over the defiling of God’s name. And his own brother, who had done nothing about Goliath himself, accused him of pride and wickedness.
Here’s what I need you to understand: when God’s anointing begins to rise up in your life, when you start hearing what others aren’t hearing and responding when others aren’t responding, some of the first people to push back on you will be the ones closest to you.
They remember the earlier version of you. They don’t have a category for who you are becoming. They will accuse your motives. They will question your response. They will say you’re being arrogant, or radical, or that you just want to make a name for yourself.
And you’ll want to defend yourself. You’ll want to prove them wrong.
But notice what David did. He didn’t get into a long argument with Eliab. He turned away. He said, “Is there not a cause?” And he moved on.
There’s a cause burning in you. Don’t let your brothers’ offense become your distraction. Don’t let the people who don’t understand your response become the reason you stop responding. There is a cause. Move toward it.
Wear Your Own Armor
Before David went to face Goliath, Saul dressed him in his own armor, his bronze helmet, his coat of mail, his sword. And David took a few steps and said, “I cannot walk in these. I’m not used to them.”
So he took it all off. He went to the stream, picked up five smooth stones, took his sling, and walked toward Goliath.
I love this more than I can tell you. Because the church has spent so much time trying to put somebody else’s armor on you. So much time telling you that you have to look like a certain thing, sound like a certain thing, build your ministry a certain way, structure your life according to a certain pattern.
But Saul’s armor didn’t fit David. And what works for someone else may not be what God designed for you.
God gave you gifts. God gave you a personality, a background, a story, a voice. He gave you experiences that no one else has had. He gave you a specific sling for a specific Goliath. And when you walk into your assignment trying to wear someone else’s method, you’ll feel exactly what David felt- constrained, clumsy, and unable to move.
“Be uniquely you. Just the way God has called you, and go forth in the name of the Lord.”
Don’t try to be anything or anyone else. The five smooth stones are already in your hand. The sling you already know how to use. The Goliath in front of you was chosen to be defeated by the specific combination of gifts, history, and anointing that is in you, and not in anyone else.
Multiple Levels of Activation
I want to say one more thing about David, because we often read his story as a single dramatic arc — anointed, kills Goliath, becomes king. But the truth is more nuanced than that, and far more instructive for us.
David went through three separate anointings. The first anointing by Samuel was for his calling. But he still had to prove himself. He still had to go through Goliath. Then there was a second anointing when the tribe of Judah crowned him king- but only over Judah, not all Israel. And finally, years later, there was a third anointing over all twelve tribes, and the Bible says that in this final anointing, the oil was not just poured but smeared into him. It was a crushing, a pressing in.
The progression is important. You may have had an anointing. That doesn’t mean you’re at the final level of what God has for you. There are different levels of activation in a life. And each one requires more: more character, more trust, more surrender, more weight-bearing capacity.
Some of you received a prophetic word years ago and you thought the next day everything was going to change. And when it didn’t, you started playing the mind games, “Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe I’m not who I thought I was.”
Stop. God’s call never changes. What changes is your readiness to carry it. The anointing is on you. You’re just in process. You’re between levels. The smearing hasn’t come yet because you aren’t prepared for what the smearing will require of you.
Stay in it. Stay faithful. The weary, anointed David who was tending sheep one day killed Goliath the next. Your moment is coming.
Stand in the Gap. Be Activated.
I want to close with a picture.
When I was nineteen years old, I had a half turkey and a yes. That’s it. And I took it to a community that was hungry, and I started serving. I didn’t have a platform. I didn’t have resources. I didn’t have connections. I just had what was in my hand and the will to use it.
Years later, that half turkey has become one of the most significant food relief efforts in American history. But it started with the most ordinary act you could imagine, feeding people with what I had.
You might only have a half turkey today. You might only have one conversation, one mentor relationship, one yes to serve that you didn’t want to give. But that’s where activation starts. That’s where your Goliath story begins.
Stand in the gap for your family. Stand in the gap for your community. Stand in the gap for a generation being targeted by forces that want to take them out before they even know who God created them to be. Run for the school board. Mentor a mother. Tutor a child. Start the Christian school. Do the ordinary act that your Father is asking you to do today, even if it’s just taking lunch to the battlefield, because what you’ll hear when you get there will change everything.
Remember what gave David confidence before Goliath. It wasn’t his own strength. It wasn’t his resume. It was his history with God.
“The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” — 1 Samuel 17:37
Your history with God is your greatest weapon. What He has already done in you and for you is the proof that He will do it again. Every lion. Every bear. Every hard season that looked like it was going to take you out — God was in it, forming something in you, teaching you something you were going to need.
You are anointed. You are in process. And you are about to be fully activated.
The field prepared you for the battlefield. The sheep prepared you for the army. And the bread and cheese you’re carrying today is going to bring you to the moment you were born for.
“Maybe all you have is a turkey and a yes. That is enough. Give it to God and watch what He does with it.”
The anointing is on you. The preparation has been happening in you. Now comes the confrontation — and the breakthrough.
You are activated. Go forth in the name of the Lord.
— Paula White-Cain