Speeches
The Blessing of Turning Your Life Over to God with Jon and Michelle Schmidt of The Piano Guys
On Dec. 6, the campus community gathered in the Knight Arena for the annual Christmas Forum to hear from Jon and Michelle Schmidt of The Piano Guys as they performed and shared how giving their lives to God changed the course of their musical career.
Referencing 2 Nephi 2:27, Jon testified of God’s gift of agency, allowing His children to choose to follow Him and providing them with opportunities to see His hand more frequently in their lives and increase their joy as they do so.
“Evidence and influence of God are everywhere,” said Jon. “As we desire and want to move closer to God of our own free will, he slowly takes the blinders off of our eyes. We start to see him, usually here a little and there a little. We see things that were hiding in plain sight, things we got used to.”
“Motherhood is a prime example where God makes Himself the very most obvious,” Jon continued. “As a teenager, this fact was hidden from me. It wasn’t until my sweetheart became a mother herself that I saw God revealed in a way that I had never witnessed before. The closer we truly want to be to God, the more clearly we will be able to see him.”
When they decided to pursue music as a career, Michelle shared the inspiration and strength she and Jon found in a quote by President Benson, which promised God would pour out blessings in their lives if they chose to turn it over to Him.
“We grabbed onto that because we didn’t know what we were doing,” Michelle said. “We weren’t perfect at giving our life to God, but we tried to ask Him what to do and to stay close and connected to Him. We have come to believe that anyone who tries to do that will find that God is going to guide them. He’s going to help you.”
Noting one point in their career when they were especially worried about their financial stability, Michelle shared how they turned to the Lord for guidance and how Jon received a father’s blessing in which he was told to continue with music and that it would be heard all over the world one day.
“At the time, we didn’t know that there was going to be this thing called YouTube and that you could put your music on it, and it would go to the world,” said Michelle. “But guess what? The Lord knew. Those are the kind of doors He can open for you in your life as you try to stay close to Him and involve Him in the decisions that you’re making, and trust the inspiration that you’re receiving.”
Jon and Michelle were married in June 1991. Jon worked as a solo pianist for 20 years, then merged with three others to form The Piano Guys in 2010, who have performed worldwide and participated in a Face to Face fireside chat and other events.
In addition to providing the prelude music, Jon also played a rendition of “I Saw Three Ships,” “Waterfall,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” upside down on the piano bench. He and his wife ended the forum by playing an original duet.