Lesson 2: The Hidden Treasures God Reveals in Darkness

Dark seasons are some of the most difficult places a believer can walk through. They are heavy, painful, confusing, and at times they feel endless. But Isaiah 45:3 gives us a promise that still amazes me every time I read it:

“And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places.”

That means there are treasures God will only reveal to you in the dark—things you cannot learn in the sunshine, lessons you cannot gain in ease, and strength you cannot develop on the mountaintop. You may not want the darkness… but the darkness may hold the very treasure God is trying to give you.

God Uses Dark Seasons to Show Us More of Himself

When life is easy, we see the goodness of God. But when life is hard, we see the character of God.

In the sermon connected to this lesson, I said this plainly:

“We not only see God’s character throughout our struggle, but the struggle develops our character.”

There are things God reveals in the valley you would never discover on the mountaintop. When you walk through a season where you feel crushed, numb, or exhausted, you begin to see how faithfully God carries you. You learn that His strength holds you when yours is gone. You learn that His presence stays even when you can’t feel it. You learn that His love is deeper than your pain.

And you learn that even when you don’t understand what He’s doing… He is still working.

The Struggle Develops Your Character

We often want God to remove the struggle, but God often uses the struggle to shape us.

“The hard times are what make you.”

That’s how I said it in the sermon — and there are some qualities you can only gain through pressure:

• Patience

• Resilience

• Dependence on God

• Empathy for others

• Emotional endurance

• Spiritual maturity

These don’t grow when life is easy. They grow when life forces you to your knees.

“Perhaps what you’re going through today is to strengthen you… to give you the wisdom and the ability to minister to others.”

Your pain may be preparing you for someone else’s healing.

Darkness Teaches Us Empathy

One of the most important treasures God brings out of darkness is compassion. When you’ve walked through depression, grief, heartbreak, addiction, or emotional despair, you understand pain differently. Your heart softens toward people who are hurting.

That’s not weakness—that’s Christlike maturity.

2 Corinthians 1:4 says God comforts us “that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble.”

In the sermon, it was stated this way:

“We become to develop empathy for others and dependence upon Him.”

Pain humbles you. Pain breaks down pride. Pain makes you reachable — and it makes you someone others can reach out to. You may not realize it, but what you’ve been through is part of the testimony God is shaping in you.

Darkness Reveals What We’ve Been Filling Our Lives With

In the sermon, I spoke about the God-shaped void in every person’s heart. Everyone is filling it with something:

• Drugs

• Work

• Alcohol

• Anger

• Lust

• Distractions

• Entertainment

• Even ministry

But none of those things will hold you up when darkness falls.

I said:

“You’re filling it with something… but if you’d just get into this Book and start filling it with the things of God, you’ll overcome that depression.”

The point isn’t that reading your Bible makes every emotion vanish. The point is that darkness exposes what we’ve leaned on that wasn’t God… and invites us to lean on Him again. Sometimes the treasure is simply the realization that the things we trusted couldn’t carry us — but God could.

Pain Produces Something Precious

I mentioned a phrase in the sermon that has stayed with many people who heard it:

“Coal under pressure becomes a diamond.”

And the same is true for believers. The pressure of your pain — the weight, the tears, the sleeplessness, the heaviness — is not meaningless. God is using it to refine the fires of your faith and form something precious in you.

I said in the sermon:

“I can preach this because I’ve been through the fire. I’ve been through the flood. I’ve been in times of trial and tribulation. But I came out on the other side refined for His glory.”

And I believe with everything in me that what God did for me, He can do for you. Don’t quit… Don’t give up… Don’t assume God is finished…He isn’t.

Let God Reveal the Treasure

You may not see it right now.
You may not feel anything right now.
You may not understand what God is doing in this season.

But as I preached:

“Instead of despising the darkness, seek the treasure God is uncovering in it.”

There is something He is teaching you. Something He is forming in you. Something He is preparing you for. And when God brings you out of this, you will be able to look back and say, “I didn’t see it then… but He was with me the whole way.”

This lesson is our reminder that darkness is not empty. It is not meaningless. And it is not wasted.
There is treasure hidden in the very place that hurts the most.