Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen. Welcome, thanks for listening. Keep the conversation going by connecting with Bleeding Daylight on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or other social media platforms. You'll find all the links at bleedingdaylight.net as well as dozens of other episodes of Bleeding Daylight featuring some remarkable people sharing their own extraordinary stories.
What do you do when a highly successful life is also filled with fear and anxiety? I'll be discussing that topic with today's guest. With a background as a successful corporate trainer and martial arts instructor, Donna Oust once thrived on perfectionism while at the same time battling fear and anxiety. Her life was profoundly transformed over 25 years ago, leading her to exchange teaching, leadership skills and martial arts for spreading God's message of grace, love and redemption.
Donna's book, When Hope Comes, Discovering God's Character and Our True Identity Through the Book of Ruth, has deeply resonated with readers, showcasing God's loving kindness and grace. Her journey is a testament to the life-changing truth of the gospel. I'm glad she's joining me today. Donna, welcome to Bleeding Daylight. Thank you so much for having me, Rodney. It's my pleasure.
I mentioned a radical transformation in your life, but I'm wondering if you could take me back and introduce me to the Donna that I would have met before that happened. Personality-wise, probably quite similar. I was very ambitious, very driven. I knew about God. I was raised going to Catholic school and going to church, so I always knew God was there, but he had no impact, no bearing on my life at all. As driven as I was, I also was doing what was right in my own eyes.
Familiar statement, right? We hear that in judges and pretty much throughout the Old Testament, doing what was right in my own eyes. I was clearly in rebellion, living in rebellion and partying hard, but working hard as well. While it seems like you can sort of manage those two, you really can't because I began to sense a true void and emptiness in my life. I was going to do something about that while God all along was inviting me to come to him.
Interestingly enough, so you mentioned that I was very much involved with karate and feminism, and I was very strong. I probably am strong today, but in different ways. It was during my black belt test. The test was in three parts, two physicals. If I was to do even five minutes of that today, I would just probably drop dead, just to give you an idea. It was the written portion of the test. I took a week off from work and worked on this, turned out to be 100 typed pages.
It was a question on that test that I will never forget. It asked what was my personal truth. Given that there's a lot of Eastern influences there, so that would have been a very normal thing to even suggest. For whatever reason, that just stopped me in my tracks. I thought, truth is truth. The world can't be round and flat at the same time. Either gravity is true or it isn't. That question just kept haunting me. That was really the beginning of my journey of finding, well, what is this truth?
I knew there had to be one, but wasn't sure exactly what that was. We talk about our personal truth, but as you say, it's either truth or it's not. Where did that take you? Well, it took me into what I learned later. It was a cult. I found myself reading a book called Urantia. I do believe it's still out there, and people are reading it thinking it's true. It's broken into three parts.
At this time in my life, I was infatuated with UFOs and abductions, and I wanted to understand the experiences people were having. This book included these beings. The first part was supposedly about our universe, and then the second part, our planet, which is Urantia. The third part was called Jesus of Nazareth. I thought, well, let me start here, because after all, I went to Catholic school, and I should know something about Jesus of Nazareth.
I will tell you that it was written so beautifully, and it was drawing me to the Lord. At this time in my life, I also decided that I needed to try some different churches, because when you go to Catholic church, even though I wasn't attending at that time in my life, but since I wanted to go back, and I did try going back to the Catholic church, and I just felt that there was just no life there. I don't know what I was looking for. I just felt this isn't it.
So I started to branch out and attend different Protestant churches. I would attend on Sunday and call the pastor the next day and ask them about this book, whether this was a Christian book, even though I knew on some level that there was definitely distortions and untruths in there. The Lord was working. None of the pastors ever heard of the book. Another particular day, I go to my parents' house.
So I'm married at this time, and I stop over at my parents' house, and we had a little dog, and they would leave the radio on for the dog if they weren't home. I walked into the house. There is no way in this world that they would put the station on to a Christian station, but for whatever reason, it was on a Christian station. I walk in, and I'm listening to this Bible question and answer show. I thought, huh, well, let me call and see if he's heard of this book.
Sure enough, Charlie Rizzo from Maranatha Church of the Nazarene at the time knew all about the book, and he said, of course I know about this book. It's demonic. I almost fell off my chair, and I said, well, how could it be demonic that's leading me to God? We talked for a bit. The show ends. He says, hang on. Unbelievable. I end up at the church, and that's where I came to Christ. Interestingly enough, it took me a long time to stop reading, because I was giving these books out to friends.
It really had a hold on me. It included Christ's miracles and so much of what is true, but when it came to the cross, he did not die on that cross for our sins. Of course not. It wasn't him. They took him. We know all those theories out there. That was the beginning of my journey. When I came to Christ, my life was literally transformed. Desires changed. Goals changed. Everyone who knew me was hearing about Jesus, whether they wanted to or not. Very little discernment at that point.
It was amazing, and being a corporate trainer, all I wanted to do was learn as much as I could and then begin teaching. I started having Bible studies in my home. I was a young mom at the time. I had little ones, and I would invite people over and started out with video teachings, and one thing led to another, and then went to seminary years later to fill in those gaps. I always felt like even though I was studying along the way, I just yearned for more.
It's interesting you talk about that moment of transformation, of coming to know who Jesus is for real and not the Jesus that is put out by so many other people in different ways. We know that when we come to faith, there are things that are radically transformed in our lives, and you mentioned some of those that instantly you just wanted to let people know about Jesus, you wanted to learn more. There are other things that Holy Spirit takes a while to deal with in our lives.
You mentioned that you were still handing out the book. Were there other things that were still hanging on that Holy Spirit had to walk through with you to say, no, no, this is not best for you and the way you should go? Yeah. Well, that sanctification process never ends, right, Rodney? He's still working on things, plenty of things. I would say there were certainly many blind spots that I was not aware of, but he would bring the challenges of life to teach me those things.
Patience, the one thing that I prayed for as a younger believer, because I was so driven as an A personality, I wanted to be more thoughtful toward people just to remember little things about people's lives or drop them a note or to be other focused. That's what we're called to do. So that took some time. I think patience was a big one.
There were certain areas of my life that I absolutely overcame some of the fears and anxieties because they were pretty significant to a point where some of them interfered with my life, where I had to make provisions in my life because of some of the fears. I had a debilitating fear of public speaking growing up in college, and I did go to grad school before seminary. For whatever reason, I chose the area of training and development, that's teaching adults.
While I wasn't a Christian yet, I was able to begin overcoming some of that by understanding some of the psychology behind audience sensitivity or objective self-awareness that's called. But when I became a Christian, the Lord absolutely worked in those areas. Do I at times have that type of anxiety? Yes, I'm a high-strung type person, but those debilitating fears, He took away. I sometimes am fearful to say that because He doesn't work the same in everyone's life for all things.
But in this particular case, I'd have to say because I knew what I was dealing with, it was a miracle. When you know that your own personal miracle, you just say, He is real, He is good, He is faithful. Life can get hard at times. He is my strength, and He is always faithful even when things get hard because there's always something for us to learn. I think that's often the beauty of the way that God works with us in that God will gently walk with us.
At times, we'll be a little bit firmer, but He will gently walk with us into those moments. As you say, there were things that were blind spots for you, and yet God continued to work through Holy Spirit to actually bring you to a change of mind or a change of action. How important has that been to you over the years, that gentle walking alongside that God does with us? Especially when it comes to the area of His grace.
Again, being raised in a more structured religious home where I believed and I was taught, if you're a good person, God will accept you and love you, and you'll maybe get to heaven. To learn that He loves me no matter what, because I come to Him, I don't have to earn His love, His acceptance. That was so huge in my life. That was years later after I came to Christ. That understanding hit me, and I'm still learning that and embracing that.
I'm in such awe of a God that just accepts me and anyone who comes to Him. That's why the Gospel's called the Good News. It's good news. We don't have to work our way into His arms. His arms are wide open, just as we are. That was a blind spot, for sure. I want to talk about your book, When Hope Comes. Tell me, what was it that drove you to write that? What were the lessons that God was teaching you that you thought, I need to put these down in print?
Years ago, because I teach what I do, that particular story gripped my heart. Specifically, being a mother-in-law of now three daughters-in-law, I thought, I just want to really dig into this story. It's only four chapters, and everyone thinks they know the story because, oh, of course, the story of Ruth and Boaz rescues her and it's redemption and the kinsman-redeemer.
But as I started to study it and really unpack context, the history, the customs, and looking at very specifically the decisions that these characters make and what they face, the tragedy that Naomi faces. Scholars compare her pain and suffering to that of Job's. As I was really looking at that, I just initially thought I would just be teaching the book. One was a video series, and then a couple of years later, it was a very intensive study at my church. It was then.
As I was going through the story, what kept emerging in my mind and in my heart was, this is a story about God's character, because every step of the way, His character is revealed. We see something, a different aspect of God's character. And as we learn His character, we get a glimpse of what our identity really is, because we know what Ephesians and a lot of these other New Testament books and letters will tell us what our identity is.
We can talk strongly, I am redeemed and I'm holy and I'm forgiven and I'm chosen and I'm an ambassador. Those are all wonderful things to say, but how does that actually translate into our lives? It's unpacking the story in a very contextual way than would be those types of applications throughout. But the initial impetus was my relationship with my daughters-in-law. I thought, well, maybe I could glean something in, and I did actually.
The type of loving kindness that we see in Ruth, even after all this time, it just is amazing. So at the end of the story, which we can miss, Ruth literally gives her child to Naomi, her mother-in-law, to raise. That was the last bit of kindness we see in the story. So the loving and sacrificial, radical kindness we see is what I want to extend to my daughters-in-law, even though it's the daughter-in-law extending it to the mother-in-law. This is walking in our identity.
That's where the rubber meets the road, is what that looks like, is living it out in a way that might seem radical. It's interesting you've picked up on this book talking about God's character and showing God's character, because oftentimes we can go through Scripture and we're looking for what's in it for me. We know that God gives us so many wonderful gifts, and He tells stories through Scripture about people and how He's interacted with people.
How often do you think we actually miss the fact that the Scripture is all about showing us more of God's character, revealing more of what God is doing to us? Yes, yes. Very often we pick up the Bible to learn something about ourselves, but the truth of the matter is the Bible is a story about God and His faithfulness and His redemptive plan right from the beginning, Genesis 3.15, right? The gospel message right there.
When we see God throughout these pages, we begin to see that, as some will accuse God of being a harsh and mean and judgmental God in the Old Testament, where in fact we see a very loving, even in the book of Judges, one part in Judges that I referenced, because we talk about this period of time, the dark days of the Judges, because this is exactly where this family, during this time that they're living. We should not be surprised when they leave Bethlehem to go to Moab, a forbidden place.
But the fact is, in Judges, we assume that when God sends a deliverer, they must have repented, the Israel must have repented. But there are cases where He sends the deliverer and they still go against God. So we see a merciful God, a God who desires the repentance. He will still show His mercy, even when they are walking in rebellion. That's the God we serve, and that's the God who is drawing us and inviting us to come.
Peter It's important that we do know our identity in God through Christ, but we're not going to know that true identity until we know the character of the God who gives us that identity. So I'm sure that has been something that has been widely embraced by those who have read the book and got a new glimpse of who God is. Tell me about some of the reactions that you've had to people reading the book. Mary Yes, absolutely. I have been so blessed by the reactions, just exactly what you said.
They said that it's not a light reading, but it's not a reading that is beyond, you know, I'm a simple woman. And so I think that it resonates and you can understand it, but I don't mince words. It's packed with a lot, but the reactions I'm getting is that just the picture of God's character and that He is so merciful and so full of grace. They love the historical context of the story of Ruth that comes to life here in the book, things that they've never heard about and some of the nuances.
For example, Rahab is likely either the mother or grandmother of Boaz, that the book of Ruth and the Hebrew Bible followed the Proverbs 31 woman, because the book of Ruth is in the Jewish religion is read at some of those festivals following Proverbs 31. So there's a connection and relationship between the two characters, which is fascinating because on one hand, people hear the Proverbs 31 woman and think she's perfect.
And then you look at Ruth, who is a marginalized foreigner, widow down at the bottom of the barrel, if you will. And yet, how can we compare them? It's not what they do. It's not their life circumstances. It's their hearts, both the heart for God and the faithfulness and the perseverance and the boldness. In Ruth, we see so much boldness in some of the decisions and some of the steps she takes, all to provide for her mother-in-law.
I'm going to make sure that people know how to get hold of your book. And I will put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net. Of course, the book is just one part of your ministries. Maybe you can touch on what Donna Oust Ministries is all about and what you're doing day to day within those ministries. Sure. Well, I have to be honest, it's a new ministry. Donna Oust Ministries is a new ministry. For years, I've been more active in my local church context.
And sometimes I'll talk at maybe another church or teach at another church, but it's been very local, raising four sons and active in their Christian school. I've worked there for a while, sat on its school board for about 12 years, it's a long time. This is something that God has just birthed. And I guess I am excited because I love to share Christ. I love to share the gospel. There's a lot of joys in my life, but nothing rivals that. Why not take this out into the world? Right? Think big.
I do want to write my second book. I have some thoughts about that. But I love to share with women. I'm speaking at a couple of churches. My husband and I are teaching a marriage class for a ministry on premarital and marriage counseling. That is what I do, Donna Oust Ministries, and it's a blessing just to serve the Lord and share Christ. You've been through ups and downs over the period of your life, obviously, as we all do.
But at the beginning of our conversation, I wanted to take you back to the person you were before that transformation in Christ. I want to take you back there again and say, what do you think that woman would have thought of the woman that you've now become? What would that woman who was full of anxiety, who was driven, have thought of the woman that you have become, the woman who is wanting to share this deep truth, this gospel? What do you think she would have thought?
That is a great question. I mean, she was very principled and very much... I mean, just that I had this desire for truth for so long, I'd like to think that she would say, good for you. You found the truth. Because I was searching. Even in feminism, I was looking for purpose. I was looking for meaning, and my religion didn't do it for me because it wasn't a personal understanding and relationship with a living God. I was always out there looking for answers.
And then to have been freed from some of the almost 20 years of the particular anxiety or fear, she probably would have said, wow, who knew? That that's the answer, right? Who knew? Even in those days of trying to get through that, which was only getting worse over time, I even went for hypnosis and it did nothing. So, I certainly wanted to get some answers.
Well, Donna, we are certainly glad that you did find the answer, that you did find the truth, and that you're enabling other people to find that truth as well. As I mentioned, I will put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find your ministry website, but also find your book. And I'd just like to say thank you so much for spending some time today on Bleeding Daylight. Thank you so much for having me. It was such a blessing. Thank you.
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