A Shift in Posture with Colton Dixon

Overcoming Pride with Humility and Service

Christian music singer and songwriter, Colton Dixon joined Family Life Radio for a little conversation. When asked about what he struggles with, he candidly shared,  “When you show up to work and people clap, it’s dangerous. Pride creeps up on you.”

The world we live in looks so different from the way God asks us to live for Him. As a musical artist, Colton struggled as he was thrust into the spotlight. “The first couple years, I want to say I didn’t know any better – but I did,” Colton admits. “I just didn’t necessarily know how to navigate it, and I didn’t do it the correct way.” He said, “You really do need to be careful with pride.”

Guard against pride

Colton literally exploded onto the stage, placing seventh in the 11th season of American Idol. “When you walk on stage and people are chanting your name – which is so weird – it can very easily become about you.”

He quickly learned the posture for every believer is to humble yourself and to be a servant.

“Pride will creep in, and it’ll fill your head with lies,” Colton shared. He’s found the best way to combat pride is to show up and put himself in the right posture to serve God and others by asking –

• How can I serve the people in the audience?
• How can I serve the people backstage?
• God, please, if there’s anything that you want me to say, bring it to my attention.

Before taking the stage, he reminds himself, I am I am here because God has given me these songs and a message that He wants to be heard. It’s not up to me to dictate how, but here these people are. So, let’s give them that message and God.

After Colton made that shift in posture, he says he was so much happier. He found it positioned him in a way that he was no longer dependent on how other people treated him.

Colton found something another artist shared with him humorous, “Your fans are never as cool as you want them to be.”

When the crowd is sitting down eating nachos while you’re pouring your heart out, it can be very difficult to block it out. But whenever you realize, I’m here for them. And if Jesus can meet people where they are, surely, I can do that too.

Colton laughed, “I was doing a show not that long ago with maybe 50 people in the entire audience. I don’t know what happened, but two girls around 13 years old came to the front, turned around with their backs to me, sat down on the subwoofer and started texting. Wow. It was at that moment that I said, ‘Lord, you’re going to have to help me do the show. I’m here for them; they’re not here for me.’”

In those moments it’s easy to forget your posture of humility and service.

Colton says he’s very thankful for that perspective shift and the work God did in him when it comes to pride.

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