By Miguel Gutierrez –
Despite having a 19.5M following on YouTube, a growing candy company and achieving social media influence, Ryan Trahan still felt empty and yearned for deeper purpose until he met Christ.
“It was a crazy juxtaposition of I should be celebrating because I love this girl but Why do I feel empty?” Ryan Trahan said on the Shane Cox YouTube channel “I realized I need to go on like a spiritual pursuit. I started taking a much less cynical approach towards asking questions, just started to pray and started to ask myself What do I believe?
“Ultimately I landed on Jesus.”
Ryan Trahan is 26 today and takes part in multiple career paths. His candy company is called “Joyride Sweets.” He’s co-owner a clothing line called “Howdy-Howdy.”
He became famous on YouTube and the remains his mainstay. Recently, he survived 30 days on a penny, trading and counting on the good will of people.
Unlike so many rude YouTubers, he specializes in being polite and kind. He has even raised close to $1.4 million for charity doing challenges alone.
Despite enviable numbers, Ryan felt empty. He was an atheist.
Then he proposed to his now-wife, Haley Pham. She was a Christian. He was wowed by her but skeptical about her faith. What he decided to do was dismiss the default cynicism, the knee-jerk scoffing, and honestly explore.
The breakthrough came July 4th, 2020 watching fireworks with Haley. He started sobbing because he realized he had been busy but had felt anything for three weeks.
“Three years prior, I would have absolutely clowned on myself,” he admits. “In the past, if I would’ve heard someone say, I found Jesus, I found this new way of viewing the world through these beliefs of giving and love, I would have been like, ‘Cringey! That’s totally delusional!’
I would’ve written you off.
But tasting of the goodness of God for himself made all the difference.
“Whenever I started looking at who Jesus was and even the things He said and the things He taught, I realized, wow, this is so loving,” Ryan says. “If I can potentially have a relationship with Him, I’m gonna try. Now it is my source of joy. It is my source of love. It is my source of everything.
“It’s real,” he adds. “I can’t lie about who I am, and I can’t lie about where I get this source of joy and positivity because it’s such a disservice to the people that watch.”
