Book: Treasures in the Darkness

Overview
Edwin Louis Cole’s 1999 book Treasures in the Darkness is a pastoral guide to finding God’s purposes during seasons of hardship, ambiguity, and loss. Written by the founder of the Christian Men’s Network, it bears his hallmark emphasis on character, responsibility, and spiritual maturity, but it addresses a broad Christian readership. Cole reframes dark times not as detours but as divinely permitted environments in which wisdom, authority, and resilience are forged. Rather than urging readers to escape discomfort, he teaches them to interpret it, cooperate with God in it, and emerge with “treasures” that could not be gained in the light of ease.

Central Image and Biblical Frame
The book turns on Isaiah 45:3, where God promises the treasures of darkness and hidden riches in secret places. Cole reads darkness as the setting in which God conceals gifts until people are ready to steward them. He links the motif to creation’s rhythm of evening and morning, suggesting that new beginnings often start in the dark, and to biblical narratives where confinement or obscurity precedes promotion: Joseph’s prison before the palace, David’s caves before the throne, Paul’s imprisonments before greater influence. Darkness is not simply the absence of God; it can be the cover under which God works.

What the Darkness Holds
Cole distinguishes kinds of darkness. There is darkness of consequence when sin blinds and isolates, darkness of conflict when spiritual opposition intensifies, and darkness of transition when God hides one season to unveil another. Each type yields different treasure: repentance and restoration for moral darkness, spiritual discernment and authority for conflict, and guidance and capacity for transition. Across these, the common treasure is transformed character. Cole insists that credibility in leadership grows from endured testing, compassion is born from pain, and conviction matures when faith must act without full sight.

Pathways to the Treasures
Cole’s counsel is practical and terse. He urges readers to submit to God’s timing, to let patience have its work, and to choose responsibility over self-pity. Prayer and Scripture meditation become orientation tools when circumstances give no visible bearings. He emphasizes openness and accountability to break the secrecy that feeds destructive darkness, contrasting the hiddenness of sin with the secrecy of intimacy with God. Gratitude, servanthood, and obedience are presented as levers that move the heart out of complaint and into cooperation. He warns against shortcuts that promise quick relief but stunt growth, and he frames perseverance not as stubbornness but as faith that keeps doing right when rewards are delayed.

Style and Structure
The book is built from short, pointed chapters that read like field notes for adversity. Cole writes in slogans and axioms, distilling counsel into memorable lines, then illustrating with Scripture and contemporary stories. The pace is brisk but pastoral, more exhortation than exposition, designed to be read devotionally or discussed in men’s groups and church classes.

Audience and Impact
While consistent with Cole’s broader ministry to men, the message aims at any believer navigating loss, failure, or uncertainty. Its enduring appeal lies in a reframed expectation: seasons that feel disqualifying can be formative, and obscurity can be a classroom. By trading the demand for immediate clarity for the pursuit of faithfulness, readers learn to harvest wisdom, humility, and spiritual authority, treasures discovered not in spite of the dark, but within it.