Why This Former Country Star Wants to ‘Humiliate Myself’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Former country star Granger Smith says his pride was what led him to leave the music industry.
“We should work on humbling ourselves,” he said in an episode of “The Granger Smith Podcast.” “I think humility comes in two ways — we see that we are humbled by God…the other aspect is we are called to humble ourselves.”
He explained, “We are created in His image, but that does not mean we are beings like Him.”
Smith shared that his pursuit of humility is what ultimately led him to end his career in the music industry.
“Music has always been important to me, but obviously following and maintaining my relationship with Jesus is my main focus.”
He said that, while many people assumed he was simply tired of performing or wanted to spend more time with his family, it was really due to his pride.
“The real reason was it was a sin for me because I was exalting myself, and I don’t think there’s any other way around it,” Smith said. “It’s very difficult for that person [onstage] not to start thinking highly of themselves in that way, and there is corruption that follows.”
He continued, “I would choose, as a Christian, to eradicate every chance that I might have to exalt myself and instead replace that with a chance to humiliate myself.”
Smith said that it wasn’t until he was “a reborn Christian” that performing “started to feel disgusting to me…it was just too much to bear.”
“It’s that disease of pride. It just starts carving away the very essence of what makes you human,” he concluded. “Humans are not made to be worshiped in any way.”
Smith has previously spoken about whether or not he would ever return to the world of music.
“My life now is much more about today and when I go to sleep at night, I could think it was enough,” he told Life & Style. “As a country music singer, you could never think that. It’s always the next album or the next tour or the next single. And so now, when I’m going and doing speaking engagements, they don’t build upon each other. It was just today, and I could say today was enough.”
He clarified, “If you’re gonna ask me right now [if I would go back to performing], if I was gonna predict it, I would say no. No.”
That doesn’t mean Smith has stopped singing, though.
“I love hymns and I love singing in congregations,” he said in an interview with The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “But a sin of mine is needing to exalt myself and music is directly connected to that. Until God redeems that part of me, I’ll hold off on making music for the church.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Smith’s decision to leave the music industry:
Country star Granger Smith recently announced that he wants to pursue a new direction in life, becoming a pastor.
Smith said he was “excited” about his decision to get more heavily involved with his local 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.”
The musician said he was expecting a few different reactions to the news.
“The first group will say, ‘Oh, praise God, that’s amazing. What an example.’ The second group’s going to say, ‘Oh no, I’m going to miss your music. I’m going to miss your touring.’ The third group is going to say, ‘Oh, go follow your little sky God. You’re probably just making money that we don’t know about as a preacher.’ Then the fourth group is going to go, ‘Granger who? No one cares,’” Smith laughed.
Smith is now working towards a master’s degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
