The CCM artist who soared to No. 1 with the hit song Who I Am says God rescued him from an addiction to drugs and alcohol and that a simple invitation to church may have saved his life.
Ben Fuller’s Who I Am reached No. 1 in 2022 on the Billboard Christian Airplay Chart, while his latest hit, If I Got Jesus, is currently in the Top 40.
But five years ago, Fuller was a country singer in Nashville who was searching for fame and fortune and -- as he puts it -- writing tunes about “back roads and beer drinking.”
“I was at a place of complete despair,” Fuller told Christian Headlines. “I mean, I was drinking 19 beers a night.”
He was also doing drugs. His life changed when a Nashville-area family, originally from Vermont, invited him over to dinner. Fuller, too, is from Vermont.
“I had moved down here [to Nashville] for country music. And I got lost on Broadway,” he said of the famous downtown area. “And I was singing about all the wrong things and drinking heavily and on drugs -- and you name it. This family had me over for a meal. And at the end of the meal, they asked me if I'd come to church with them the next day. And I just said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Sure, whatever, I'll go.’”
That church was the Church of the City in Franklin, Tenn. Fuller, a lover of music, was captivated by the songs he heard.
“God used the music, and I heard His voice. And He said, ‘I gave you yours. And now you're gonna sing for Me.’ And so I just gave it all up.”
Fuller had been drinking and doing drugs, he said, for about 14 years. Over the “course of two months,” he stopped.
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“And He took the taste of alcohol and the swearing -- everything -- right out of my mouth. And just cleaned me up,” Fuller told Christian Headlines.
Before he was saved, Fuller said, Jesus “was always just a swear word in my mouth.”
“I didn't know who He was. And Vermont is 2 percent, Christian. And so I never got invited,” he said of his life in the New England state. “I didn't go to church. I never heard the gospel.”
Fuller will begin a tour with We Are Messengers and Jonathan Traylor in March. He’s no longer singing about beer.
"Now it's light and love and Christ and redemption,” he said. “I'm giving Him all the credit. I'm giving Him all the honor. And He's just making this thing happen.”
Photo Courtesy: Ben Fuller Music
Video Courtesy: Ben Fuller Music via YouTube
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.