Something you’ve never considered …
“And he awoke from his sleep and said, ‘I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.’ But he did not know that the Lord had left him.” Judges 16:20.
There’s a kind of dread in that line. Not in the drama, but in the silence. The power was gone. The Spirit had lifted. And Samson didn’t know.
He moved like he always had. Same posture. Same plan. But something had changed. Not in the mechanics, but in the presence. The outward action looked identical – but the inward reality was vacant, absolutely empty. That’s the danger of growing familiar with the form and forgetting the source. Things are what they are – until they are not. This was one of those moments.
Grab your coffee, pull up close, and if you wear glasses, put them on – this might be what you have been needing to read for a while. This Samson drama isn’t just a warning – it’s also a strange kind of mercy. Samson moved expecting God to act. That tells you something about how God had worked with him. Time and time again, God had come upon him, often in moments where Samson’s personal holiness was lacking. The anointing wasn’t a feeling. It was a fact.
And that’s the part we need to recover.
You don’t have to feel anointed to be anointed. Scripture never makes the anointing about sensation, a kind of “tzzzzzz” of unearthed electricity – surging, pulsating through you like a Marvel superhero’s Infinity Gauntlet, which grants near-omnipotence. It’s better. It’s about calling and covenant. It’s about the Spirit of the Living God resting upon human weakness and producing something that only He could produce – at His initiative and His timing.
We’ve baptised our insecurity in spiritual language. “I didn’t feel led.” “I didn’t feel anything.” “The atmosphere wasn’t right.” But what does that even mean? Since when was obedience dependent on mood? Or prophecy on goose bumps?
We prophesy by faith. We lay hands on the sick by faith. We speak, move, lead, trust, wait, and act by faith. The entire ‘stuff’ of the kingdom runs not on emotion, but on trust. The righteous shall live by faith. Not by impulse. Not by energy in the room. By faith.
That’s why John Wimber was happy to stop the music, turn the lights on full, and pray for the sick – the very sick – in a room full of spectating learners. Think about the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37 – it carries the same edge. It’s not soft imagery. It’s a battlefield stripped bare, nothing left but bones scattered in the dust. No life. No hope. A valley that speaks of finality. Then the Lord asks Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?” A question that admits only one answer: “O Lord God, you know.”
Here’s the point. God doesn’t ask Ezekiel to feel something, He asks him to speak something. To prophesy to what looks hopeless. No pulse. No movement. Just death. And yet, when he obeys, the Word goes out, and there’s a sound. Rattling. Bones clattering back into place. Sinews. Flesh. A body formed. Still no breath. Don’t mistake noise for life. Then God commands again, “prophesy to the breath.” Call it in. Ezekiel speaks – and breath enters. They rise, a vast army. Ezekiel isn’t led by sensation. He’s not inspired by an atmosphere. He simply obeys. He prophesies by faith. And as he does, God works.
Samson gets a mention in Hebrews 11 – it doesn’t read like a list of spiritual highs though. It reads like war. Like grit. Like men and women who pressed forward when nothing in them felt ready. Noah built without a forecast. Abraham packed without a map. Moses left behind status and power, choosing mistreatment over comfort. You know the stories by heart. They didn’t wait for a moment – they obeyed a word. And in their wake, the evidence: God was at work. Whether they perceived it or not.
So for you, here we go – that’s the mark of faith, real faith. The authentic faith. You might feel nothing, but the sick recover. You speak, and the room responds. You pray, and demons tremble. Not because you felt power – but because God honours His Word.
Faith doesn’t need to feel anointing to do it, and obedience certainly doesn’t require a sign. The Spirit is not waiting for us to be in the mood. He’s waiting for us to trust Him.
We’ve grown used to thinking the anointing is something you can sense. But the deeper reality is this: sometimes the most anointed thing you will ever do is obey God in complete weakness, with no evidence except your conviction that He is faithful.
Put your cup down and pause as you read this…
Samson’s tragedy was not that he lost the anointing. It was that he didn’t notice when it had lifted. He’d grown so used to moving without intimacy that he mistook memory for presence.
Let that never be said of us.
Better to move by faith, with no feeling, and find God was in it – than to wait for a feeling, and miss what He wanted to do.
You are not called to feel powerful. You are called to believe, obey, and then be hugged by God.