The gavel comes down with a crash. The judgment is rendered, final. Nothing and no one can overturn it now. After staring ahead for years, with vacant eyes, at inevitable, solitary confinement, I can’t believe that the echoing report of the gavel is ringing the news… of… my release, not my imprisonment. My pardon, not my punishment. Reality soaks slowly into my parched soul.

I get to my feet, trembling a little, and feel life surging through me like never before! Turning to my right, I prepare to leave, and I see them cuffing him and marching him toward the barred security door. The judgment is rendered, final. Nothing and no one can save him now. Someone had to pay for my crimes. He volunteered. If I was willing to confess to it all, he would pay for it all. I believed him and now his promise is a reality. Here I am, walking out into the sunlight and into the waiting arms of my new travel companion and guide. The Father’s daring plan, his Son’s perfect execution, and now I’m being held by the unshakeable arms of my Helper and seeing his smiling face looking right into my smiling face. It’s done. 

A luxurious lounge chair, white sand beaches, and a perfect purpose await at my new home, but they are a long way off. My new reality with my Father and my glorious future won’t keep the trials away. Trials have crashed into me a thousand times, shocking, like full-body slaps from icy waves. I remember the deep, dark disappointment that followed in the wake of every one. Even now I sense more waves approaching, but I can’t tell from what direction.  

But I do not fear them now. Everything has changed. Each crashing wave will strengthen me, not weaken me. Why? Because, as I lose my breath with each heavy slap of cold water, I don’t try to stand my ground. I hold fast to Him. As my eyes feel the burning from the salt water, I don’t blink back the tears. I bury my face into His shoulder. He’s never lost a battle to a trial, not even to that greatest looming tsunami, death.

With every storm weathered, my confidence in Him grows and my muscle memory improves—I put all my strength into clinging to Him, nothing else, and I find myself standing! So, I am content, even happy, to march onward, knowing that each step brings me one step closer to home. Every trial proves His power and that I am not alone. I know how dearly the Father loves me, because he has given the Helper, to keep my heart topped up with His love.

This story is just Romans 5:1-5 turned into a personal picture – one that helps me understand the connection between trials, disappointment, and faith. Disappointment and faith are connected, because disappointment is what you feel when the thing you trusted and hoped in (had faith in) fails you. When do things tend to fail? When they are tested. So, often, when we experience trials, the things we’ve been enjoying and hoping in fail us, and we feel disappointment—even devastating hopelessness.

But what would happen if every trial proved the thing we hope in and trust in? What if it never failed, when tested? Two things would happen. First, our confidence in the object of our faith would grow, and second, our fear of it being tested would shrink. We would no longer dread the testing but would welcome it.

In Romans 5, Paul explains that this idea is our new reality! We should not fear trials, because our faith is in the finished work of Jesus Christ, and every trial will only grow our confidence in his love for us. If we learn to keep our hope in him, we will never come away disappointed. 

Romans 5:1-5 NLT