Former Country Star Shares Mental Health Hot Take — ‘Seek the Lord’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Granger Smith recently decided to stop reading ads for therapy companies on his podcast, preferring to encourage listeners to “seek the Lord.”
“For a long time on this podcast, I promoted a therapeutic company,” he said at the beginning of an episode of the “Granger Smith Podcast.” “After reading this episode, I emailed [the ad] agency…I said, ‘I don’t want to talk about therapy anymore. I don’t want to promote anybody’s therapy of any kind. It’s just not helpful. It’s contradictory to the things I talk about on this podcast.”
Smith continued, “I don’t care what it takes to fund this podcast. [These ads] might be hurting, it might be leading people in the wrong direction.”
“It’s very serious stuff…plaguing our society,” he said, listing things like depression and physical health issues. “All of it could be relieved by those who seek the Lord.”
Smith explained, “We’re happy with what the world gives. We’re glad that the world provides peace, car alarms, security systems, Band-Aids, life insurance, pool gates, seatbelts. There’s a lot of things the world provides…but none of it is ultimate. None of it is eternal.”
“We don’t earn our favor with God…you can’t earn goodness. You can’t earn salvation by being good,” he continued. “Because [Jesus has] gone to the cross and taken this punishment on [Himself], the punishment you deserved, you no longer have to be a good person to be in good standing with God. You need to be in faith with [Jesus], in a relationship with [Jesus].”
Smith concluded, “When we seek God….you’re opening yourself up to a relationship with the Son who offers peace and purpose.”
Movieguide® previously reported on another episode of Smith’s podcast, concerning smartphones:
Former country artist Granger Smith is cautioning us against the overuse of smartphones, as they can draw our attention away from God.
“We live in a world that — this is the first time in the generations of the past — this is the first time in human history that we’ve dealt with this specific problem: being distracted by a metal rectangle that we keep in our pockets that’s constantly giving us notifications, that gives us complete access to the whole world and anything we might need from it at any given time, people reaching out to us and sending us down rabbit holes constantly all day,” Smith said in an episode of the “Granger Smith Podcast.”
He continued, “Our life is literally passing by and so much of it is glued to a screen looking at meaningless stuff.”
“We need to be aware that we are outside the will of God when we’ve become unconscious, which is why the Bible so many times speaks against being inebriated, being drunk,” he explained. “Why? Because when you’re inebriated, your mind is somewhere else. You can’t discern the will of God for your life without clarity in your mind.”
Last spring, Smith stepped away from his career in the music industry and focused on ministry.
“Being a musician was never a prison, but this is a new passion, a new focus, a new direction that I believe is going to allow me to focus more on individual people and their lives, which is ultimately why I started music touring in the very beginning,” he explained. “This is an even more micro-focused position in that. I’m not going anywhere.”
He elaborated on his decision during a speaking engagement at Liberty University, saying that performing music had become too much about himself.
“If I walked on stage playing music and nobody sings and nobody shows up, I would take that personally,” Smith said. “It’s about exalting myself then, and I need to deny that. Exalting myself doesn’t reconcile with the Gospel.”
He continued, “Many times, as Christians we have to give up things that aren’t inherently bad themselves. Music touring is not a sin in itself. Neither is social media, caffeine, alcohol, or college football, but anything can become sin when it starts to hinder our walk with Jesus. So, we have to surrender that. That’s part of what it means to ‘deny yourself.’”