Tina Yeager: Showing That God Provides Nourishment (Part 1)

John Farrell: I know you spoke recently with Craig von Buseck about your book, Beautiful Warrior. While we’re not going to talk a lot about your book as we’re going to focus more on some of your other projects that are near and dear to your heart, I do want to know what’s the reception been like for the book so far?

Tina Yeager: I’ve gotten some really encouraging feedback from the people that it has touched as far as helping make a difference in encouraging them and anchoring their identity and purpose in Christ and giving them a sense of esteem. It’s been able to lift them up out of the shame lies that they sometimes weren’t even aware they still harbored in their hearts and their minds.

JF: That’s great to hear. As I mentioned, I want to focus our conversation on the other projects that are near and dear to your heart. Looking at everything that you’ve done, everything you’re doing, and everything you’re planning to do, it’s obvious that you’re an extremely busy person. You have so many pokers in the fire. What’s your secret?

Tina: For most people, as a life coach and as a therapist, I would say planning is a great thing to do. However, what God has led me to do, because I’m such a goal-oriented Type A planner, is take that off of my way of scheduling my life and let Him lead.

So, every day, it’s, “God, what are we going to do together today?” He gets to plan my day. If I put Him first – if I do my meditation, my prayer, my Bible study, and my devotion first – everything else falls in line. And I’m able to have time to do the things that are important if I follow His lead. When I try to do it on my own and plan it myself, it all falls apart and I don’t have enough time to do what’s important.

JF: You obviously embrace that mentality, and it’s especially evident in the story you told me about your move to North Carolina. You said that God told you, “Hey, you’re moving here.” It’s almost like blind faith. Your response was, “Okay, we’re moving up here, or at the least we’re going up here to see what God wants us to see up here.” How did that whole transition play out?

Tina: Since I was a young child and the poster child for being strong-willed, Type A, first-born, and all of those things, the Lord has constantly been training me to unlearn being just Type A on my own, being very humanistic in orientation, which is what that can lead to if we let it, and learning to trust Him to be the one that writes my future. That is a daily step in that direction, more and more. Gradually, more and more.

It’s not an overnight process where you learn to do that. You have to really unlearn the human tendency, which goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden when we wanted to be our own God. I think that’s a human temptation for all of us to want to be in charge, to know what’s happening, to understand the next step every single time. But the more we learn to trust God, the more we see You are the one who has my best interest in mind.

I no longer trust that I even know what I am going to want tomorrow. I may think I know what I want, but if I get it, is it really going to be what I love the best. If I follow what God is leading me to do, what he’s giving me next is always better than what I thought I wanted.

JF: It’s all about being subservient to God and letting Him be the leader of your life versus letting those worldly pleasures take hold of what your desires are or what you want to do.

Tina: That’s the plan and that is the intention. It takes a lot of constant turning to God and saying, “I didn’t do that right now. I didn’t do that today. I didn’t do that this morning but teach me to do that better again tomorrow.”

I don’t want to pretend that I am perfect in that area because that would be misleading. I do believe that I’m better than I ever was, and God is leading me to be better than I am today for tomorrow.

JF: And that’s all we can hope as Christians.

So, talking about your podcast, Flourish-Meant, I’m curious about the title, as well as the subtitle, which is “You Were Meant to Live Abundantly.” What do “Flourish-Meant” and “You Were Meant to Live Abundantly” mean to you?

Tina: It means that we’re meant to live with all the blessings that God intends for us. And that’s with regard to all the aspects of our well-being in Him, and centering that in our spirituality in our truth is key. It’s not a prosperity gospel message. So, that may be a concern if you were leaning in that direction.

It is living with that fullness of dwelling in the best that God has for us because I believe that God loves us as a loving Father and He truly wants what’s best for us. If we just listen to what He gives us through experts, through his Word, through all the leading He gives us in prayer and meditation, He will guide us toward His best for us and His best through us to bless other people.

JF: Absolutely. What inspired you to create the weekly podcast?

Tina: I actually thought it was going to be too much to do, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it, but someone at a writer’s conference, another writer colleague that was doing a podcast said, “Tina, you really need to do a podcast.”

I said, “I don’t know. I’m not going to have time.” But he said, “You really need to do it.” So, I said, “Okay, I’ll just go to the class. I’ll learn what I need to learn about it, and I’ll pray about it.”

Then my agent said, “Tina, you really should do a podcast.” So, I thought, ‘Okay, fine.’

JF: That’s God talking to you through multiple people.

Tina: Yeah, that’s how I took it.

Once I started doing it, I realized I love this more than most of the things I’ve ever tried to do before. I really enjoy how much I learned from other people. I love being able to highlight and lift up other people.

As an author, oftentimes you’re asked to market yourself and that gets incredibly tedious. It’s so much more fun to be able to lift other people up and support other people instead.

JF: That’s awesome. You’ve been doing the podcast almost on a weekly basis since June 2019. From the time you started the podcast to now, is there something you’ve learned that you would have done differently from the get-go? For people interested in creating their own podcast or those who are just starting out, what advice would you give them?

Tina: I usually tell people to learn all they can from everyone that’s already doing it, which I actually did when I started my podcast. That’s the advice I normally offer.

Mostly what I have learned is just how much I loved doing it more than I thought. So, don’t be afraid to try to do something that God is leading you to do when you’re not sure if you’re going to like it. If you feel He’s leading you, then He will equip you, and He will bring people around to you to help train you more than you ever thought you could. If it’s not of God, then it won’t last and that’s fine.

JF: That’s a great way to look at it.

I listened to several of your interviews and noticed there was an overarching theme among them. Could you please tell me a little bit about what that theme is? Also, what is the overall message you want listeners to take away from your interviews?

Tina: I feel all of the people that I interview and all of the content that I’m presenting shows that God brings us nourishment from a variety of sources to bless us in all of our well-being, to be able to fulfill his purpose through us. Each of us has a Christ-centered purpose, and we all benefit from the purposes of others. Together we build up like living stones a house that is meant to be the end dwelling of Christ among us, in each of us, and in all of us together. So, we need the blessings and benefits that others offer us as much as we need to offer what God has given through us to others.

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