It has been a while since I have had this experience, but the lesson I learned from it will stay with me forever. One afternoon I received a call from the commissioner of District 6 in the city of Orlando. He heard me at a Haiti benefit event. He requested my services at his wedding. I told him that I don’t usually do weddings, but he was persistent. His wife had heard me also and they decided that they wanted me because they loved my music and my performance. I told him that the reason why I don’t do weddings is because I only do my music and I don’t have a list of songs appropriate for a wedding. To my surprise he said your music is exactly what we want. I asked him if he wouldn’t prefer to have love songs played at his wedding. He said no, we want our wedding to be spiritual. We want you to do your music. they didn’t just want me for the ceremony, they also wanted me for the reception. I agreed to do it and we hung up.

Then two days later I received an email from his wife to be. In the email was a list of songs that she wanted me to do in the ceremony and at the reception. The list included songs like Personal, Sweet Surrender, Longs For You, One More Day and Sweeter Than the Honey. I couldn’t help wondering what the guests would think when all they would hear is religious music. After I did the wedding, the Bride and Groom came up to thank me and let me know how pleased they were. Some of the other wedding guests told me the same thing, but there was one person who expressed that he would have like to hear songs more familiar to him. I don’t know whether he was referring to love songs or religious songs. What I do know is that this experience has given me a whole new appreciation for Proverbs 3:6.

When we quote this verse we put it together with verse five, so we come away with the idea that we should trust God in all things and this is a great way to understand those two verses. However, When we take the time to ponder verse six by itself we will discover it has enough power to stand on its own. How much is all? For me, the word all implies that none of my ways should be reserved for myself. We tend to compartmentalize our lives. We have our Christian experience in one compartment and our everyday life experiences in another. My experience at their wedding brought this verse very strongly to my mind and I couldn’t help thinking about how God views our everyday lives. I wonder if God gets lonely? It’s not like he doesn’t know all the intricate details of our lives anyway, but somehow all of us have certain areas of our lives where we leave him out.

Should there be any limits on spirituality? What about our romantic experiences? When you have some time you should check out Songs of Solomon. This book is no less inspired than the other books of the bible and yet we find a beautiful love story with even some passion woven in to it. If we turn over our lives completely to God, we will realize that his holiness is pervasive. It will consume everything that is not like himself. His word tells us in Hebrews 12:29 that he is a consuming fire. It is only when we have this kind of experience that we can fully appreciate the things of God. It won’t be a strange thing to acknowledge God and bask in his holiness outside of church and to keep his holiness in mind in our every activity and in every detail of our lives. If we want to see him in all his glory, if we want to enjoy the holy bliss of Heaven, and if we want to live in the presence of holy angels and a holy God for eternity we need to learn to embrace his holiness right now. We will not enjoy Heaven if his holy presence is not first in our thoughts and our affections. There will be nothing in Heaven that will remind us of our past except the battle scars of our Savior Jesus and the absence of some of those whom we loved here on Earth. I believe this is why the apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 3:2 to set our minds on things above and not on things of this earth. It is my desire that in my every thought and action that the sweet fragrance of God’s holy presence will be there. I pray the same for you as well.
what do you think?