Country musician Granger Smith recently made headlines when he announced that he was stepping away from his music career to pursue ministry at his local church. Smith said his life is one he’s always wanted, but he’s ready to give it all up.

On “Sunday Night in America,” he explained, “It’s a story of a guy that, you know, had what I’ve always dreamed of having. And I’m turning it back over. I’m turning it back in for a life at the local church. But I believe that that’s what I am called to do.” Host Trey Gowdy asked Smith how he got through one of the most challenging moments of his life when his 3-year-old son River died in a drowning accident in 2019.

Gowdy asked, “For some, that makes them abandon their faith and for some, that makes it stronger. How did this make your faith stronger?” Smith responded, “I wish I knew the formula for whether or not that’s going to make you bitter or better. I cannot take credit myself for the radical transformation that the Lord did in my life through this tragedy. And sometimes, you know, when that soil is cultivated, and we have to dig deep, and we can’t find it within ourselves- the Lord comes in and shows himself in a very profound way, in a way that I cannot take any credit for.”

Smith continued, “What I do know is now I have something to do with this. Now that this gift was given to me in a time of the darkest tragedy of our life. Now I have a purpose to go out and share this message of what happened to me for other people that are probably going through the same thing.” Smith said he’d been asked why he would give up his platform instead of using it to spread his faith and how God helped his family, but he said he’s debated that topic in his head.

However, Smith added, “It’s like, what? You got the stage. Why not just travel the world and sing country music and be a light at a dark place and people come and pile in these venues, and you could talk about Jesus, and you could talk about your faith? You could sing a few hymns. Isn’t that the better choice? And what I could not reconcile with that is that when Jesus said if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. That self-denial is something I struggle with in country music, where instead, every night, I’m getting up on the stage and seeking glory, seeking applause, seeking people to exalt me. And that’s just not what we’re called to do as followers. And I could not reconcile those two things together.”

He continued, “And I think God looks at us and says, ‘Don’t tell me how I get my glory,’ you know? And so it’s so easy for us to go, ‘Oh, I know how I’m going to glorify God. My way. And I’ll also be rich and famous at the same time.’ I couldn’t reconcile that. And I want to say it’s important to say too that I’m not talking to anyone else that might be in entertainment or in music. I’m not saying what anyone else should do. This is something that I struggled with internally because I struggled with exalting myself and seeking that praise. And that’s something I needed to strip through sanctification away from me.”

Smith’s last tour, “Like a River,” started April 13th with plans to wrap up on August 26th.