Since we're into illustrations, lets take a look what D.L. Moody has to say about how the Holy Spirit chooses whom to empower:

When I was out in California, the first time I went down from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and dropped into the valley of the Sacramento, I was surprised to find on one farm that everything about it was green - all the trees and flowers, everything was blooming,...and just across the hedge, everything was dried up, and there was not a green thing there. I could not understand it. I made inquiries, and I found that the man that had everything green, irrigated; he just poured the water right on, and kept everything green, while the fields that were next to his were as dry as Gideon's fleece, without a drop of dew. So it is with a great many in the church today. They are like these farms in California - a dreary desert, everything parched and desolate, and apparently no life in them. They can sit next to a man who is full of the Spirit of God, who is like a green bay tree, and who is bringing forth fruit, and yet they will not seek a similar blessing.

Well why this difference? Because God has poured water on him that was thirsty; that is the difference. One has been seeking this anointing, and he has received it; and when we want this above everything else, God will surely give it to us.

D.L.Moody, Moody's Stories: Incidents and Illustrations (Chicago: Moody,1899), 75-76.