How God Saved This Christian Musician From Addiction
By Movieguide® Contributor
Despite growing up outside of the church, Ben Fuller explained how God transformed his life and saved him from addiction to find freedom and fullness in Christ.
“I grew up on a dairy farm in southern Vermont, and so Vermont, what I didn’t know at the time, was 2% Christian. And so, I only went to church for funerals and weddings, and Jesus was just a swear word,” Fuller told 99.1 Joy FM. “You don’t know what you don’t know. And so, as I grew up, I wasn’t learning these things, I wasn’t hearing anything different. And so, I never heard the Gospel.”
Instead, Fuller was raised in a hard family and grew up very quickly. He was instilled with a hard work ethic from a very young age but along with that came heavy addictions.
“I struggled so much,” he said. “At 16 years old, I wanted to die…I didn’t think anybody loved me. I had it all together on the outside, and on the inside, I was just empty. That turned into 14 years and a half of cocaine, alcohol, sleeping around, just these addictions that I couldn’t break and that I thought I would find comfort in and that turned out to just be empty. Void after void after void.”
“And so I moved to Nashville in 2018, with all those addictions, and I got invited to church after a year of being there, so fall of 2019,” Fuller continued. “And wow, I can’t tell you. I think as living a life of an addict, I had never been more high in my entire life standing in the aisle, hearing worship for the first time and wondering what all this was but knowing it was exactly what I’d been looking for. This was exactly what I wanted. This was exactly what I had been needing.”
In that service, Fuller gave his life over to the Lord and shortly after, he found freedom from his addictions.
“Over the course of two and a half months — I mean the sanctification process is obviously ongoing forever — but my alcohol habit, drugs, sleeping around just ceased,” Fuller told the “Jesus Calling” podcast in May.
“That changed everything, that spared me from certain death. I can share now — as a 37-year-old Ben to the 16-year-old Ben — and say, ‘Hey, I found the thing you’re looking for, and His name is Jesus.”
Wanting to share the incredible fullness that he found through Jesus, Fuller now tours the world, proclaiming the Gospel through his music and social media.
He frequently encourages his followers to turn to Jesus.
“If you spent the weekend feeling trapped, way down in the basement of your life.. Curled up in the corner in the dark.. The light switch is somehow too heavy to flip and the stairs are just too far away for you to even crawl to.. Hang on. There is hope. His name is Jesus. Even if you can barely murmur His name, I believe He will change your life. Ask Him, and you’ll see,” he posted.
Movieguide® previously reported:
As a child, Christian artist Ben Fuller wanted to be a country singer, but “God had other plans.” He opened up about his “roller coaster ride” life on the “Jesus Calling” podcast.
Before pursuing a musical career, he was born and raised in Vermont, where he worked on the family’s dairy farm.
“[T]here was a lot of pressure from my father on me to perform and to work harder, and there were always things to be done. 180 black and white Holstein cows require a full-time job,” Fuller remembered.
He said that he had a “tough relationship” with his dad that stemmed from how his father was raised.
“[My father] was raised by his father that men are tough and men are strong, and you can’t show emotion because emotion shows weakness,” he said. “And so there were a lot of times I just wanted to hear ‘I love you,’ and I never heard it.”
“I don’t blame my father for that, because he was doing the best that he knew how,” Fuller added.
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