Unraveling the Misconceptions Leading People Away from Jesus

STEPPING AWAY FROM THE SPOTLIGHT 

After spending twenty-four years building a successful career as an award-winning, platinum-selling country music artist, with songs like “Backroad Song,” “Happens Like That,” and “If the Boot Fits,” Granger Smith made a decision that surprised many of his fans: he walked away from the music industry and the spotlight to pursue a calling into full-time ministry. 

For Smith, this decision came after a lifetime of calling himself a Christian but not actually living like one. Smith realized that he did not know God at all, but he wanted to know Him. This decision also came after the devastating loss of his three-year-old son, River, in 2019. The loss of his son set Smith on a course of discovery into the heart of God that radically realigned his entire life and priorities. For months upon months, he desperately searched for an answer, for healing. “I was like a drowning man, gasping for air,” says Smith. He tried self-help books, meditation, and medication, but it wasn’t until he was listening to a sermon, speaking out of the book of John, chapter fourteen, that his perspective was changed. He realized that he needed to pick up his cross, deny himself, and fully follow Jesus by keeping His word. Smith later wrote about this experience in his New York Times bestselling book Like a River. 

NO LONGER HOPELESS

Smith’s mind and perspective on God had been transformed. He found his hope, his freedom, and everything he needed in the person of Jesus. Smith began having conversations with people who had gone through or were going through the same challenges he had experienced. He realized that these people seemed virtually hopeless, even though they claimed to be Christians. He would ask them simple questions like, “Where is your hope?” They would say, “Well I don’t have any hope.” Then he would ask, “Are you reading your Bible?” or “Are you going to church?” They would always seem to answer the same, “Not really.” 

This is exactly how Smith used to sound after his family’s loss and before he started living differently. These encounters are what led Smith to write Poison in the Well: 11 Toxic Beliefs that Kept Me from the Living Water of Jesus. He grabbed a stack of books, rented an Airbnb in the woods, and spent a week writing the first three chapters of his book. He started writing out beliefs that had held him back from truly knowing Jesus. He noticed that, before his perspective was changed, he hadn’t been going to church or reading his Bible, and he had no hope. There was a pattern, and Smith was determined to break it. 

THE MESSAGE

At the heart of it, Smith’s book is about breaking down the wall of lies that stands between us and truly knowing Jesus. Addressing the lies in our lives requires honesty and vulnerability, which Smith talks about in his book. Smith examines eleven different beliefs that can quietly distort the way people see God, faith, and even themselves. He addresses the dangers of cultural Christianity, misplaced identity, idols, and the idea of simply being a “good person.” Smith challenges readers to look beyond a surface-level Christianity and examine whether their beliefs are actually producing a life that reflects a genuine relationship with Christ. 

He draws from his own personal experiences of loss, heartbreak, and transformation to make the message more tangible. The book encourages readers to be willing to question assumptions they may have carried for years and confront the beliefs that may be keeping them from experiencing the fullness of their relationship with God. 

Smith hopes that people’s perspectives will be radically changed for the better by reading the book and that they would come to truly know Jesus. He also wants readers to hear and study the Gospel after spending time in this book, for, in his words, “everything has to reconcile to the Gospel.” Ultimately, Smith doesn’t want Poison in the Well to simply leave readers with a list of wrongs to correct. He wants it to point them towards hope and toward a deeper, personal relationship with Jesus. 
 

To learn more about Granger Smith, click the LINK!

CREDITS

New York Times bestselling author; latest, Poison in the Well (2026); author of Like a River, Up Toward the Light, and former country music artist; father and husband; graduate student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.