Saying you believe something and living like you believe it...

...are two totally different things.  I say I believe and trust God, and know what his word says about trials, his purposes and his sovereign hand; but standing and living on those promises are different than saying you believe them.  I have a sonogram tomorrow.  I try to act really tough and confident- trying to be super excited about possibly finding out if it's a boy or a girl, but in reality, my reality, my sinful, unfaithful natural state, I'm pretty much in "freak out mode."  I don't have the luxury or history of living in the blissful, carefree pregnant state that I so often envy.  I have had way more "bad" sonograms than good ones.  My eyes and my heart automatically scan the screen in a panic mode trying to see movement, a heart beat, anything that says "life" instead of "death."   I know that what ever the outcome of everything God has laid out before me is good, regardless of how it makes my flesh feel, because he is good and I do believe his promises and they have been tested and proved in my own life.  But I am still this fallen creature that tends to want the easy way out, the shortcut, the bed of roses that my flesh longs for on the way to glory.  I have seen the glorious things God does in my life with brokenness and despair.  He makes me to look to him, to cry out to the only one who can help me.  It is not a bitter place to be, it is sweet.  Yet my flesh still presses against it, flees from it.  My prayer is that whether there is weeping or rejoicing in life or death tomorrow, that I would take joy in the God of my salvation and never let my circumstances steal my joy in HIM.