One80: Testimonies of Transformation
Be inspired by stories of Christian transformation from around the world--and next door! Hear miraculous coming-to-Jesus stories from all walks of life and be amazed at how God writes a story in all of us. One80 is a production of OneWay Ministries.
One80: Testimonies of Transformation
102: Planting Seeds of Faith, Merrill Oster (mentorship)
Merrill Oster grew up on a farm and eventually was a successful business man in farm futures in 16 countries, among other business endeavors. See how he and his wife prayed their way into a calling that would lead to decades of purpoose.
In his golden years now, Merrill has a new venture: equipping retired business leaders to pray and serve their communities for Christ.
Merrill was blown away when his Pinnacle Forum group prayed to mentor young men and in walked Caleb, who fit the description of their bold prayers. Merrill became the story behind Caleb’s One80. This episode features Merrill’s One80, including the fire that was the impetus to bringing Merrill to saving faith, his rise to success, and how he boldly wears his faith on his sleeves.
If you need inspiration on God's path for you in your Golden Years, be inspired by Merrill's One80.
Helpful links:
Caleb Jue's One80, scroll to episode 101
Christian Mentoring, helpful resources from Cru.org
Halftime, the Christian university for the second half of your life
Equipping seniors to pursue God's calling, Finishing Well Ministries
People Merrill Mentions:
Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Cru.org
Henry Blackaby, biblical teacher
Bob Buford, founder of Halftime.org
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OneWay Ministries
Welcome to One80. Transforming testimonies from next door to across the globe. Be amazed at how God works to bring people to Himself. Share today's One80 with a friend. It might be the best news they hear today.
Merrill Oster:And so we were praying specifically that the Lord might show us another opportunity. And then these guys showed up. Lord, I'm saying, Lord, this is of you. Then I went back to my forum. I told the guys, and it was a spine-tingling experience for all of us because we thought that, you know, that was a very specific answer to prayer.
Margaret Ereneta:There's always a story behind the story. Somebody who's helping make someone else's testimony through the Lord. And Merrill Oster is one of those. And I didn't know his testimony, but I knew it was great. And I said, come on in, we're gonna record it along with Caleb. And so here is the testimony of Merrill Oster. We normally start testimonies at the beginning of someone's spiritual journey, but since Merrill is a mentor to Caleb, I wanted to start about just hearing his career path. This is Margaret Ereneta. Welcome to Merrill's One80.
Merrill Oster:My career path started as a farm boy in Iowa, and so I learned to work on the farm. And that really got me started, realizing that uh I could make a living if I rolled up my sleeves, and the more I worked, the more my dad would give me allowances and pay and what have you. So he taught me how to work. That's probably one of the best lessons I learned in life. I graduated at Iowa State University in about two years and ten months. I was in a hurry because uh I had to pay for my own education, and the quicker you got out of college, the quicker you had to stop paying money. Master's degree from Wisconsin, a radio broadcaster for four or five years in my early days, after a very dramatic experience of waiting on the Lord, praying with my wife, starting a business on my own.
Merrill Oster:One of the businesses that I then uh launched as a result of that was called Professional Farmers of America. We taught farmers how to use commodity futures to manage their risk in agriculture. That led us to Commodities Magazine, which was a different audience. We had about 30,000 professional farmers of America. We did seminars for them, I did speeches for them, teaching them how to buy land and basically manage their risk, financial risk. And uh from that, we bought a magazine called Commodities Magazine, grew it up to Futures Magazine, bought a small company that had data from all the exchanges in the world. We formed a news organization called Osterdow Jones, put our news into that data system and spread that all over the world, had offices in 16 countries in a company called Future Source.
Merrill Oster:I began selling these companies when I was 55 years old and uh finished selling all of them uh by the time I was about uh 70, I guess. While I was doing these companies, I also had a couple of side ventures. I owned farmland and I had a full-time farming operation. We raised 26,000 head of hogs, 6,000 acres of corn soybeans. So I was considered to be uh an up-and-comer uh when I was probably in my 30s. People had their eyes on me. I had opportunities to uh uh be groomed for uh governor and what have you, and had the idea in a very early age that God gave me businesses for a specific purpose that had to do with my spiritual upbringing.
Margaret Ereneta:And now we'll hear about Merrill's spiritual upbringing.
Merrill Oster:My spiritual upbringing, you might say that I was born with a spiritual spoon in my mouth. My grandparents were all Christians. Several of my great-grandparents were Christians, my dad and mom were Christians, uh my school teachers for the most part were Christians. I learned Bible verses both in Sunday school and in daily vacation Bible school and in the country school that I went to, which was a small school of about uh 30 kids in seven different grades. So I learned at a very early age to um understand the principles of the Bible. I was so excited as a seven or eight-year-old about the stories of the Bible. I can still remember the excitement of uh the Old Testament stories of uh Noah and Daniel and all these things.
Merrill Oster:It wasn't, however, sinking in at a very deep level. It was not till I was 13 years old that my my grandmother, she had witnessed to me. She lived with us because my grandpa passed away, she moved in with us because she couldn't afford a house of her own. So it was like having a second mother in the house. And she would uh remind me biblical truths like, be sure your sins will find you out, and things like that. At a very early age, I understood, I understood exactly what it was that I had to do. I had at some point accept Jesus Christ as my Savior. But this was knowledge I carried in my head at age 13. My grandma was sitting beside me in the middle of a storm. We were down in the basement sitting on five-gallon pails, and grandma said, Meryl, you're just making too much work out of this. You've got all this head knowledge.
Merrill Oster:She quoted Acts 16, 31, just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. And it was like scales came off of my eyes. The Holy Spirit just unveiled himself to me in such a way that I said, Oh, I believe I'm saved. She says, Well, of course you are. Now go upstairs and tell your dad. So I did. The next morning, she says, Now, Merrill, when you get to school, be sure to tell your friend Jim Sluter that you got saved. He went to our same church. I did. I told Jim Sluter. Jim said, What, you? He knew I was a bit of a character. About uh 10 years later, we're both freshmen at Iowa State University.
Merrill Oster:Jim Sluter gives me a call. He says, Merrill, I got this guy that I'm talking to about salvation. He says, uh, his name is Al. I need you to get over here and help me. I said, Well, Jim, you and I went to the same church. You know all the same stuff I do. He said, But I'm not saved and you are. Get over here, Merrill. So I jumped in the car, go over to his fraternity house, and spent the next couple of hours talking to him. Don't know how, whatever happened to Al, but about a month later, my friend Jim came to Christ in a very dramatic and wonderful way. It's amazing how the Lord uses interesting little situations like that to shape our spiritual life.
Margaret Ereneta:Those interesting little situations. When you grew up in the church, we call that a when faith gets real testimony. Merrill's faith is about to get very real. Listen in.
Merrill Oster:Things were going along pretty well at Iowa State until one morning I was coming home from my radio broadcast. I was coming this way, and the flow of students was this way going back to campus. And one of my girlfriends, not a girl who was her friend, not a girlfriend, you know the difference. Uh, she said, Merrill, your house is on fire. I said, Sure. What else is new, Jan? She says, Merrill, your house is on fire. I knew she was serious. I took off on a dead run. I get to the farmhouse and I find that only one person lost everything that he had. The fire went right up the corner of my house.
Merrill Oster:My roommate was on student teaching. I lost everything I had. Went home. My dad, mom bought me a batch of new clothes. I came back and bought new books. I was on campus the next day, and I bumped into a kid from my hometown. I tell him my plight. He said, Well, we happen to have a place to stay in our apartment house. Come join us. I did. He was a committed Christian believer who became a significant spiritual mentor. First night we were there, he said, Merrill, about 9 o'clock, we we all stop and we have a word of prayer. And uh so I stopped and we had a word of prayer. We got on our knees and we prayed.
Merrill Oster:I didn't think I'd ever prayed on my knees much before. So for the rest of my college career, I was praying every night on my knees with these guys. These other guys my age were pouring into my life at that time, had a dramatic impact on my spiritual life. So uh, fast forward that story, my children and my wife and I, we would at the end of the day go to one of our beds and we would pray on our knees. Carol and I started doing that from the night we were we were married. And uh frequently I would be off in my office doing something, and Carol would be reading the story to the kids and we'd get ready to bed.
Merrill Oster:And I'd hear somebody yell down the hall, Dad, it's time to pray. Twenty years later, I'm at my son's house. He's putting, his, his wife is putting my grandson to bed, and I hear this little guy yell, Dad, it's time to pray. It just said chills right down my spine. This stuff really works. It passes on from generation to generation. So that's the sort of the personal side of my spiritual life. The Lord has given me opportunities uh over the years to have an impact on uh be involved, I would say, in in lots of other people's lives, just as many other people have had an opportunity invest in my life.
Margaret Ereneta:Next, Merrill talks about stewardship. His grandma had a big impact in his life, and stewardship is what Merrill lives by now, and this is how it started. Listen in.
Merrill Oster:She could talk about uh cookies and Christ all in the same sentence. It just seemed so natural for her. And so as a result of that, I think it became uh easier and easier for me when I began to uh step out on my own and form a company uh to dedicate it. My grandma said, When I got a my when I got my car at age 16, uh, now you know that car is not yours, Merrill. You're just a steward. That car is owned by the Lord. Use it to advance the cause of Christ. So I began dragging my buddies to church on Sunday nights. And um, I know that at least one of them went on to become a missionary. Uh, another one died in a car accident a year or so later, and I just trusted during that time that he got saved.
Merrill Oster:So I think that the fact that other people were investing in me caused me to want to invest in other people, and it's very humbling because you realize that it is not it is not our works, but it is the Holy Spirit within us that is working through us. And every once in a while I think that uh as we grow in our Christian faith and we're growing in our financial success at the same time, there is a struggle that takes place between the time we need to spend with our family, the time we need to spend in our business, uh, and the time that we need to spend, you know, looking for new opportunities. And uh it's in that area where I believe that the teachings of the Word of God cause us to manage our time in such a way that we get things done as Christians that other people cannot get done. You know, we are taught to redeem our time. Uh, we are taught to set priorities. Paul said, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added onto you. And so I think that having a vision of what you want to do. Without vision, people perish, having a clear vision of what you want to do in your career, which I had at a fairly early stage when I went on my own.
Merrill Oster:I didn't do it casually. We I prayed about it for probably two or three months with Carol. And one morning when we were in Iowa, I took a walk from the farmhouse up to the top of a a hill about a quarter mile away. I just talked out loud to the Lord all the way up the top of the hill, you know, kind of asking him and begging him to give me a sense of direction here. Should I, you know, I've got a good job right now. Should I step out with two kids and a and a wife and have no income next month? And uh got to the top of the hill and turned around and it was like getting saved all over again. I had that sense of uh peace that just flooded my soul. And so my start in business had a lot to do with a really a God-given sense of peace that yes, you're supposed to be doing this. And so the spiritual aspect of my life began to develop, and I began to say to myself that Lord, I've got this business now.
Merrill Oster:What is it that I should do? How can how can I make this a company that really advances the cause of Christ in a unique way? So I began to write up a series of uh principles that we stand for in our company and pass them out to new employees as they came in. And they basically were based on biblical principles without chapter and verse. Then we prayed before the airplane took off when we went to seminars. Uh when we did seminars and I gave speeches, we always mentioned the reason for the optimism that we had. I always made it kind of light. I said, I know I'm optimistic about the future because I've read to the end of the book, and I'm talking about the good book. I know how it turns out. Those who walk with the Lord end up in the winner's circle. That's why I'm optimistic. People like to be like to hire me to give speeches because I get them fired up. I'm all optimistic.
Merrill Oster:I don't want to leave them without them knowing that uh there's a real reason for my optimism. It has nothing to do with my success or my my cunningness, my sharpness in business. It has to do uh with the fact that I know how things are all going to turn out. But I was very clear uh and let people know where I stood. And of course, occasionally people would come up to me after a speech and say, you know what, you really uh carry your religion on your sleeve. And my answer was, Oh, I'm so sorry. I really wanted to show all over. So uh it's it's been a wonderful ride. I'm now um in my 80s, and the the guys that used to be my mentors, uh they're now with the Lord. So I'm being mentored by peers, and so my pinnacle forum guys uh help encourage me, hold me accountable.
Merrill Oster:And I'm still excited about life. I just expect every day, as Henry Blackaby taught me years ago, every person that comes into your life, Merrill, he's either got something for you to know or you've got something he needs to know. Look at it as an appointment from God. And so that's how I look at the future.
Margaret Ereneta:We are live with an audience with this show, and so the audience asked Merrill a question about the Pinnacle Forum, and as it turns out, Merrill started the Pinnacle Forum all over the nation. So he talks about that. It's so neat.
Merrill Oster:Why is it called Pinnacle? A great question. We call it Pinnacle Forum because we meet guys at the very pinnacle of their success and we help them go higher. And we did this in an area called Pinnacle Peak in Scottsdale, Arizona. So before we launched this project, I took two of my buddies who I had recruited to help us get this thing off the ground, and we all three of us had been involved in other ministries before. Said, we don't want to be starting something just to build our own eagles. Let's get before the Lord. We crawled up to the top of Pinnacle Peak, not the very top, but as far as you could go without hooks and ladders. Uh, and before there were trails there, and we sat for an hour and prayed and sung hymns, uh, asking the Lord for his guidance over Pinnacle Forum. So that also played a role in why it's called Pinnacle Forum.
Merrill Oster:And so we were praying specifically that the Lord might show us another opportunity. So then these guys showed up, and um, there was a real specific moment. They had done the work in my yard. They were standing with me in my office, and I had just given them the little the book, uh Purpose-Driven Life. And then I asked them, by the way, what high school did you guys go to? They said, Metea. Lord, I'm saying, Lord, this is of you. Then I went back to my forum, I told the guys, and it was a spine-tingling experience for all of us because we thought that, you know, that was a very specific answer to prayer.
Margaret Ereneta:I wish I asked, but someone in the audience asked this great question. What advice do you have for other people who are 65 thinking about retiring and just kicking back? What would you say?
Merrill Oster:Uh I met uh Bob Buford in business. Uh we were in young president's organization together. I hired him to be a part of my advisory board. And one of the questions that he asked me, Merrill, do you want to spend the second half of your life doing the same thing that you did in the first half of your life? And I said, you know, probably not. I like to start things and turn them over to somebody else and then do something new. Uh so you know, the idea of changing, he said, Well, I suggest that you cultivate the Christian involvement and use that as a prelude for a second career. So when you sell your companies, you will have already had some test runs doing various things.
Merrill Oster:And of course, that fit exactly right into what Dr. Bright was telling me that I should do, and that was to start an organization which became Pinnacle Forum. So that idea struck me when I was probably uh in my early 50s, I began selling companies, and I got rid of all of them by the time I was uh uh 60 or 65, and uh then really threw myself totally into doing the things that I had already started. So it wasn't like I retired and then had to start something. If if a person is getting to write a retire and he knows the Lord and he's wondering what to do, I would say find a parachurch organization and join up.
Merrill Oster:Pinnacle Forum was just one of many organizations uh that have a specific uh purpose in mind, and that is to continue to accelerate the spiritual growth process in each of our lives with the idea, not that we just become more spiritual and more Christ-like, but something results from that, that we can engage ourselves in spiritual practices uh that change our community. And we've got some of those things going on in our community and in various communities around the country that are a direct result of that kind of activity of our forum.
Merrill Oster:So, you know, God is still alive and well and doing work today and in our lives and doing miracles in our lives. And uh all we did was play a very, very small little role. All plants, Apollos waters, but it got God who gives the increase. So we did either some planting or some watering. But in the end, it's the Holy Spirit that really is what clicks in these guys' minds and and uh causes them to want to do the same.
Audience:Thank you so much.
Margaret Ereneta:Thanks for listening today. I hope Merrill's testimony encouraged you, especially if you're a senior, if you're his age and you don't know how the Lord can use you. You'll have a lot of ideas with what Merrill shared today. We will link those in our show notes.
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