By Rev Francis Oleghe
The hidden treasures of darkness are not what you go searching for; they are right within you. They are the untapped potential buried within you. You may never know they are there until you are ready to know God’s purpose for your life.

The hidden treasures of darkness are to be excavated out of you by you, and understanding the word of God helps you achieve this. In Luke 16:1-9, the Master in that parable doesn’t commend the unjust steward for dishonesty but for recognizing divine principles at all. The unjust steward recognized divine principles and applied them though wrongly because he is a child of this world. That parable is a subtle indictment of us children of light who though have the word of God yet don’t recognize divine principles or, where we do, fail to apply them. Thus, what we find is that wrong people are applying good principles wrongly and benefiting from the wrong application while the children of the light are bereft of the good things of life.

A major problem being faced by the godly today is failure to follow through what God has endowed them with.
vThey see politics as dirty.
vThey see sports as carnal.
vThey see lawyers as liars.
vThey see accountants as stingy.
vThey see the military as bloody.
vThey see the customs service and police as corrupt.
They have a jeremiad for almost everything, and the end result is that they fail to pursue the purpose of God for their lives.

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled (Titus 1:15). The above scripture succinctly tells us that:
1. No legitimate endeavor is impure in itself.
2. The things you say are impure may be impure only to you.
3. To the defiled and unbelieving even the purest of things look impure.
Whoever finds fault in everything is the one actually faulty. And things cannot defile you unless you have an innate problem. It is therefore better to deal with your innate problem than to shy away from calling and responsibilities.

In an attempt to subdue his talent, a man who has been endowed by God with boxing potential may end up becoming a bully at home, beating his wife and children, when he should enlist into the World Boxing Council which has rules and regulations, etiquette and code of conduct, and earn for himself a good living. Instead of being celebrated as a sportsman, he is being disrespected for making sport of himself; instead of earning a good living by his gift, he earns insults and hurt.

The “bully” in you isn’t bad if you submit it to the authority of the WBC and use it to confront a Mike Tyson instead of helpless and weak human vessels. That “bully” well channeled will bring you before kings and great men. Many today have been greatly limited because of:
vLack of faith in themselves. (You cannot believe in yourself until you believe God’s report).
vFear of adventure.
vTraditions of men and age-long beliefs.
vPoor background (which in actual fact is manure for greatness).
vDistraction and setbacks.

Gideon had a very poor background, yet within him lay all that was needed to free the Israelites from the Midianite bondage. But for as long as he failed to recognize his potential (“this thy might”) his people remained in bondage (Judge 6:11-14). For forty years Moses carried the rod for his breakthrough in ministry and the miracle of his people’s deliverance without recognizing it. He had thought it was just any other kind of rod. But that was where the hidden treasures that turned him into the greatest leader of all times lay. The prophet’s widow looked up to Elisha to pay her husband’s debts but that was not to be. Her debt-canceling and life-long wealth was in the pot of oil she hardly recognized (2 Kings 4:1-7). Jephtah, the despised and ridiculed, recognizing his fighting disposition, decided to channel that ‘gift’ towards legitimate military training and adventure in Tob and he became ruler over those that had despised him (Judges 11:1-6).

The problem of the prodigal son in Luke 15 was not his request for his share of the estate or his subsequent adventure, but his going far away from his father’s control. Yet it was better for him to have tried and failed and learnt from his failure than for him to never have tried, and to have remained naïve as his elder brother. The irony that occurred in the parable of the two brothers is still with us today: our docile attitude allows those who have squandered our common wealth to return again and again for more loot. At the end of that parable, it was the prodigal son that was in the Palace being celebrated while the son who had “neither transgressed” was outside the Palace in anger and rage – all because he failed to tap into what had been so freely given.

Rev Francis Oleghe, a legal practitioner is a Pastor with TREM Headquarters.