Social media personality Kirby Minnick challenges young women to follow Jesus 

SAN ANTONIO—A popular Christian YouTube personality urged young women at the Shine Girls’ Conference to “live a blessed life, not an easy life.”

Kirby Minnick, a communications major at Dallas Baptist University and social media influencer, was keynote speaker at the two-day conference at Crossroads Baptist Church in San Antonio, sponsored by Union Femenil Misionera de Texas and the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas.

Through her YouTube channel, Minnick offers content that ranges from comedic skits, to lifestyle and beauty, to her personal faith in Jesus.

‘I felt empty’

Minnick recalled how her father suffered depression and abused alcohol, which led to her parents’ divorce.

Minnick lost her father when she was in fifth grade as a consequence of his alcoholism. Not long before his death, her therapist suggested she share with him how his use of alcohol was hurting her. She failed to address the issue the last time she saw him, and she felt guilty.

“I felt empty, worthless and alone,” Minnick said.

Her father’s death led her to think she had to try to fix whatever problems other people had. However, she soon realized that was impossible, and she felt like a failure.

At church camp, she cried out asking God to “just show up.”

At that moment, Minnick realized she had been trying to fix and heal others, but God was the only one who could do that.

Finding freedom

“I felt like this weight had been take off me, and I felt this freedom,” she said.

Once she realized God was in control, and she wasn’t, she felt liberation, she explained.

“I was never in control,” she said.

Challenges remain in her life, but Minnick told the young women it is a blessing to follow Jesus. But blessing does not mean freedom from difficulty, she stressed.

“Live a blessed life, not an easy life, ” she urged, challenging them to find their new identify in Christ.

Don’t let the good take the place of God

Sometimes, Christians are tempted to place other people or things in the position only Christ should hold in their lives, she noted.

For Minnick, following Christ meant breaking up with a boyfriend, even though he, too, was a Christian. Even good things should not take the place of God, she stressed.

“We are not to place the things of this world over God,” she said. “We are to worship the Creator and not the created.”

After she and her boyfriend ended their relationship, she went to an event she would not have attended if they still had been together. At that event, she connected with the Shine organizers and later received the invitation to become the conference keynote speaker.

Minnick now sees God was leading her to fulfill a calling, but she certainly could not understand God’s guidance before.

“We have to believe God will provide,” she said. “What we need is so much bigger than what we want.”

Obedience as a discipline worth practicing

An act of obedience, even when it is hard to understand God’s purpose, is a discipline worth practicing, Minnick said.

“We cannot walk the race if we cannot walk in obedience,” she said.

Even when they are obedient, Christians sometimes face difficulties, she noted. She described her struggles with anxiety and depression when she started college.

Although she found the new environment difficult, God’s Holy Spirit reminded her she was “made for more than this,” she said.

In the moments of doubt, Christians can look at how God has protected and guided them, and then trust God will continue to do so.

There is new life in Christ, and those who have trusted in him must live as new creations, she emphasized

“Satan speaks deceit, but we must start agreeing with what Jesus says you are,” Minnick said. “We have been chosen to be children of God. In Christ, we are able to overcome anything.”