"Never Underestimate My Jesus"

It's another Contemporary Christian Music Thursday here at "I'd Laugh," and today we continue to celebrate the years I spent at Wesley Memorial UMC, 2001-2005.  Despite some of the early misgivings that I have already chronicled here, I can now look back and see some amazing times shared with some wonderful youth and great adult volunteers. There are a number of songs that were important to us during that time, and I will be sharing some of them over the next few Thursdays.  But none were more significant than For the Moments I Feel Faint.

At some point during the first year I was at WMUMC I discovered the band Relient K.  They were a punk/pop combo whose lyrics seemed to relate to teenagers in a way that very few Christian bands did.  It wasn't long before I had given away multiple copies of their CD Anatomy of the Tongue In Cheek as door prizes at meetings of our student ministry, which had come to be called Graceland (more on that another day).  Soon it seemed that CD was constantly playing in cars, on the church van and at youth.  If it wasn't playing, kids were singing songs like Sadie Hawkins Dance, Pressing On, Maybelline and For the Moments I Feel Faint.  The interesting part is no one ever called the song For the Moments I Feel Faint. It was always identified by the first line of the chorus:  "Never underestimate my Jesus."  It is an amazing little song.  I especially remember Sean Bell singing it in worship one Sunday morning...

The sad part is that during my time at WMUMC, I constantly underestimated Jesus.  I loved Him with my whole heart (though my mind often wandered).  I worshipped him and led others in worship with passion.  But I slowly but surely quit putting my trust in Him.  You know the old Meatloaf song, Two Out of Three Ain't Bad?  It doesn't apply here.  It was bad.  I didn't trust Jesus to bring us the right pastor.  I quit trusting Him with my family life.  I quit trusting Him in my ministry.  I still followed Him, still loved Him, still worshipped Him. I was experienced and very good at my job, and so most everything seemed OK.   But I began to place my trust in myself instead of in God.  And that never ends well...

But today is not about me and my failings, it's all about Jesus and the amazing work He did at Wesley despite me.  The pictures in today's slide show are all from those years, and I think they capture the love and the joy we shared together.  There were so many obstacles we had to overcome and so many times when it would have been easy for any one of us to just give up.  But we didn't.  We carried on.  There were great trips, amazing moments with God and great relationships that I still treasure.  I love the people you will see in these pictures.  And even in the darkest moments, even with my lack of trust, we never lost hope.  And that is the message of the song.  So enjoy the video, and remember that God is always with you in the storm.  "Never underestimate my Jesus.  You're telling me that there's no hope; I'm telling you you're wrong..." 



Because of Jesus,