Faith Walk / William Carroll
Faith Walk / William Carroll
Episode 37: Faith's Role in Work and Leadership: Dennis Nations
Have you ever stood at a crossroads, decision in hand, with the weight of the world pressing down on your shoulders? I have, and in this installment of the Faith Walk podcast, I, William Carroll, open up about such a moment in my life. A time when leaving my job seemed the only option, yet through the struggle, I experienced a divine assurance that steadied my resolve. Join me as I share the seldom-told stories of how faith can be a beacon in the professional sphere, illuminating paths to unexpected solutions like a troublesome compressor in oil production, and how seeking guidance from above brought about not just peace but also increased efficiency.
The journey doesn't end with personal victories, for the presence of God's blessings is a narrative that weaves itself into the very fabric of our daily work lives. As I reminisce about the years spent serving others in the ambulance service and fire department, you'll hear tales of the profound sense of favor that commitment to a higher calling can bring. And let's not forget about the impactful leaders we meet along the way—like Dennis Nations, whose faith-driven approach to leadership taught me the inestimable value of empathy and direction. This episode is a heartfelt celebration of faith, leadership, and the often-overlooked blessings that quietly shape our lives every day.
Well, good morning and welcome to Faith Walk podcast. I'm your host, william Carroll. We're on episode 37 and I wanted to follow up a little bit on episode 36. And I wanted to share a scripture with you, starting off. First thing, on Faith Walk, I want to ask you today, how is your Faith Walk? How are you doing in your Faith Walk? Have you started it?
Speaker 1:You know, once we start, once we take God out of the box and a religion puts him in the box, but relationship takes him out. We have a relationship with Jesus Christ, then we start our Faith Walk. It's a daily walk, you know, he says. He said take up your cross. Take up your cross and follow me. So it's a daily walk, you know, and we grow faith by faith, here a little, there, a little, precept upon precept, you know, and we grow with the Lord and in that growth we see signs, wonders and miracles, and we miss them all the day and they can be easy, easy things, you know, like a sunset, you know, and no sunset is ever the same. Any sunset I've ever seen is never the same, but they're all given to us by God and they're all a blessing from God. So start your Faith Walk if you hadn't.
Speaker 1:And today I want to go back. I shared last time about how God, I just felt the pressure of God. I felt like I was in a pressure cooker and I needed to make a decision. I needed to just quit my job and I finally just said, ok, lord, I'll quit tomorrow. And the Lord spoke into my spirit and he said not yet. And I got such a peace and I just started focusing more on my job and just asking him to bless my job. And I shared some things about how some wells had really gotten better and the production in it and when they had moved me on the south end and I was down there on Hills Lake Road, those were some wow, those were some old wells too, some really old wells, and we had a compressor that was pulling down the line pressure that the wells might would make it. And the thing is, you know, different guys produced their wells different, however they learn. So the guy before me, you know, he every day he'd have to crank that compressor and put it back on because and shut his wells in overnight and put them on and then they'd run for most of the night. Then the compressor would go down because no line pressure, and then he'd have to start all over again every day. Every day was starting all over again.
Speaker 1:Well, to start this old compressor in this building, we had an air tank for the starter and we had to crank this gas engine on it. To pressure up this air tank, to crank this compressor. Well, it had a hand crank. You took this metal handle and you put it on the crank, on the little engine, the gas engine, and then you turned it, you cranked it and you cranked it until it would finally kick off. And let me tell you something you had to get that thing off. If you didn't get that handle off, it would go around and it would beat the fire out of you. It broke bones. I think it fractured my wrist. One time I had to go to you know. Well, I didn't go to the doctor. I should have, because, boy, I struggled for about eight months with that wrist because when, well, it didn't crank up and go around and hit me On, that time I went to crank it and there was so much compression on it it kicked back and it jammed my wrist. And man, I hated that thing, you know. Finally, they put us an electric start in their battery. Start, you know, and you could start it finally after years.
Speaker 1:But anyway, what I was saying was I had a different way of producing my wells and I would just pray and I would just ask God, you know, lord, how can I increase the production? How can I increase the production? Well, I had gotten my wells up on the North end, man, they were all going good, they were all painted. I painted them all. Man, I'm telling you, I'd use the gas off of the separator and I'd hook up a hose and I had a skeet gun is what they called it and you just stick it down into the, you could cut a hole in the top, stick this hose down in the gun and use that gas and it just prays it on there. You know, and that's what I was using, I had all mine painted and looking good and they decided to move me. You know, I had everything just like I wanted it. They decided to move me.
Speaker 1:I didn't like that. I was down on the South end, down there, and and me and them wells were in bad shape and the separators were in bad shape and I know some of you don't understand what we're saying but a separator. When the gas comes up, you have gas, oil and water and it goes through a separator and that separator separates it. Gas goes down the line to sail, the water goes in a water tank and the oil goes into an oil tank. So it's just a separate. It separates what is being produced.
Speaker 1:So the way it was running, like I said, it was dying all the time, you know, every night. And I just once I jammed my hand I said that's it, I'm not doing this anymore. I don't like this, I don't. I think my, my production is not going to be as good as it could be. And because I don't have the compressor running 24 seven, if I have the compressor running 24 seven, then I can produce more gas because it's not going down at night and then it takes the wells all night to build up pressure, to meet the line pressure, to produce. I'm losing production. That was my thinking.
Speaker 1:And so I prayed about it and prayed about it. I said I don't know what to do. So I called the mechanic, I called Delmer and I said hey, delmer, you come on down here. And I said I'll meet you over there. That compressor, because I wanted to learn about everything in the oil field. I didn't just want to learn about being on the gang, I didn't want to learn about being just a pumper. I said you know, I or producer producing wells I like producer better, because that's what I did produced wells. And then I didn't want to, you know, I wanted to know about compressors too. So he came down there and, man, he was good with those compressors and I told him what was happening and I said I said you know, delmer. I said every night, you know, my wells are doing good. I have to put some on. They're doing really good.
Speaker 1:And about midnight, one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, there's not enough gas to to run the compressor and it goes down along low suction pressure. I said I need, I need to do something. I said I said can I, can I run it any slower than it is? He said no. He said William, it's idling now. He said it really needs to be running faster, but we can run it at an hour idle, you know. And it was 900 RPMs, a little over that. And he said, he said, but he said, so what do you want to do? I said I want to pump gas 24, seven. You know, I want this compressor compressing gas 24 hours a day. Is there anything I can do? And he said yes, William. He said you can. He said you can take and you can back off on the pockets of the compressor. And it's just two wheels on both sides of the compressor and there were screwed all the way in, which means they were set to produce the maximum amount of gas that that compressor could compress the gas.
Speaker 1:Now, compressor is just what it says it compresses the gas and it builds pressure. If the gas is at 30 pounds when it comes in, well, the line pressure may have been 300 pounds or 400 pounds or 900 pounds, and you have to go through certain stages to get it up to that pressure, to move it down the line. So it just compresses the gas. All right, he says. He said, but you don't have enough gas really to you know. I said well, what are we going to do? He said we're going to back out on the pockets. He said well, he said that cripples it. I said what do you mean? It was not going to produce. He said no, he said we're going to back off until we get to the right point where you have enough gas that your wells are producing, that it'll run 24, seven. And he said and that way you won't have to be cranking it. God told him.
Speaker 1:I said I called it the man killer. I said I'm not cranking that man killer there over there anymore. I said that's ridiculous. And it it hit one of the. It had hit one of the mechanics the other mechanics Jack. It had hit him on his forearm because he didn't get it off in time enough and it walked around and hit him and it fractured a bone in his forearm. And I know there was many, many more before us that this has happened to.
Speaker 1:Well, anyway, listen, let's get home. And so, um. So I said okay and uh, and he, he, we backed off on the pockets where it wasn't compressing as much gas it was. It was taking it longer to compress the gas. Okay and so, uh, man, my well started doing really good. I didn't have to shut them in every day. They were able to produce, they were able to work, they were able to maintain a line pressure instead of going up to 200 during the day and then coming down the 30 in the middle of night and killing the compressor. It maintained an average in my. My production rate went up on my wells and my production rate at the compressor went up because it was average.
Speaker 1:Now, listen, I had shared that, how I believe that that God was blessing me, god was teaching me, god was, was leading and guiding me in the oil field. See, god needs people wherever we are, wherever you are, wherever your job is, and. And so, uh, and I said that you know God blessed me. Well, listen, I'm gonna read this to you right quick. It says um, you say what do you get that, william? And this is in Deuteronomy 28. Yeah, it's the old customer, yeah, it's the old testament. But guess what? The promises are? God or yay and amen. That's what the bible says. All the promises are God or yay and amen. So yay is what I say. Anyway, due to around me, 28, I'm gonna be real fast and try to read this. It, without stumbling, stumbling and stammering like I'm doing right now, says now come to pass.
Speaker 1:If you diligently obey the voice of the Lord, your God, to observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you to date, that the Lord, your God, will set you high above the nations on the earth and all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you Because you shall obey the voice of your Lord, your God. Blessed shall you be in the city. Blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall you the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, the Offsprings of your flocks. Blessed shall your basket be and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in. Blessed shall you be when you come out. The Lord will cause your enemies, who rise against you to defeat you, to be defeated before your face. They shall come out against you one way and flee from you seven ways. Amen, and the Lord will command the blessings On you, in your storehouse and in all which you set your hand to do, and he will bless you in the land which the Lord gives unto you. The Lord will establish you as a holy people to insert To himself, just as he is sworn to you. If you keep the commandments of your Lord, your God, and walk in his ways, and the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, your God and you walk in all your ways.
Speaker 1:See, god wants to bless you. God wants to bless you wherever you are, whatever you're doing, if you walk in the ways of God, he wants to bless you. You know he. He wanted to bless me when I was in the ambulance. He wanted to bless me when I was in the fire department. Why? Because I serve the Lord, my God. I am a child of the king. I am a child of God, a joint heir with Jesus Christ. He wants to bless me. So, whatever your profession is, whatever, wherever you work, god wants to bless you if you're his child.
Speaker 1:But you know, sometimes we have to know, we have to know what God wants to do. We have to know the will of God. We have to know the blessings of God. We have to know that he's going to bless us as we come in and as we go out. In another place it says that you'll be the head, not the tail, you know? And uh, god wants to bless his people Because it brings blessing to him, because they look at you and they say there's something different with that guy right there. I don't know what it is, I can't put my finger on it, but there's something different about him and and he's different, he's peculiar, he's a different kind of person. Well, listen, I'm just telling you. It was so good. You know. I mean and God just showed me in the oil field every step I made.
Speaker 1:Listen, I had a, I had a. I had a Boss out there at one time. He worked for us for about 15 years and he had to retire Because of his. His wife, um, he would put her on the couch and come to work and we went home for lunch. He lived right across from the plant and the office. Then she'd be sitting right there and he needed she needed a lot of help. So he asked them to retire him early. He had already worked at a couple of different companies. He started at the bottom Of a company, working like me, and worked his way up to boss and then in that company sold out to a big corporation in Ron and then in Ron was changing all kinds of stuff and and Going in a different way. So he retired and then he came over to us.
Speaker 1:His name was Dennis nations and let me tell you that was the best boss I ever had. In my life I've had a lot of good bosses. I mean a lot of good bosses. I've had some bad bosses, you know, but Dennis nation was a a God fearing, god loving man and he had a way of being a boss that was totally different than Really any of the bosses that I I ever knew. Dennis, he loved his coffee man, he loved coffee, he drank coffee all day long, he loved his coffee.
Speaker 1:And Dennis would, would come in and in the mornings, you know, and he'd tell us what he wants us to do, and he had a peculiar laugh about him and, excuse me, he'd start laughing. He'd say alright, guys, now you need to shovel your firewalls. And firewalls is a wall of sand. Well, it was sand where we were in the river bottom. Some of them were made out of clay, mine were all made out of sand, but you had to shovel them and keep the sand up because it had to be able to contain the.
Speaker 1:If you had two, two oil tanks and two to four hundred barrel oil tanks to four hundred barrel water tanks, the firewall around that had to contain all that fluid. If you had some kind of, you know, leak or disaster, or or they, the valves were open. It had to contain all that, not to get on the ground. So he'd say you need listen. He'd say you need to leak. You needed to shovel your firewalls, you need to check all of your valves. You need to make sure none of them are leaking, you need to make sure they shut off.
Speaker 1:You know, and he and he'd laugh. He'd tell you what you needed to do and then he'd laugh, you know, and man, I knew. I knew, when he said that, when he would say something and it was about work, it was about what we needed to be doing I knew in my heart he meant it. You know, yeah, he giggled, he laughed, he was funny. Yeah, you know, I love him to death, though, because he was a great boss, because you could go into him, you could talk to him, you could tell him what you thought or what you didn't think, and and, and the other guy would go oh, he's just so, one guy, he's just silly, he don't. I said listen, you need to do what he said. He's telling you so he doesn't have to get on you, so he don't have to come down on you, so he doesn't have to discipline you, so he don't have to yell at you and holler at you, which Dennis never yelled and holler.
Speaker 1:Dennis was one of the smartest men in the oil field that I ever knew. I'm gonna tell you he knew downhole. He knew. I Actually didn't know it, but when he came to work for me, I realized who he was. When I was on a hydraulic snubbing unit way back in the end of 70, in the beginning of the 80s, I had done some jobs for him at At at Urso. I had done some snubbing jobs for him on some whales that they had drilled and we washed the sand out. And Listen, dennis was so great. Well, let me tell you a story about him. So one day, well, I don't know. Well, okay, I stepped off in it, so I'm gonna do it. So we're, dennis.
Speaker 1:We had a guy that was man. He was the worst worker. I he's a good friend of mine, but he was the worst worker at that time than anybody out there. I mean, he was horrible. You couldn't get him to do anything. And man, he was just horrible, you know.
Speaker 1:And so the an opening had came open that I was working forward to. I mean, I was looking forward to because I had been learning, they had been teaching me their job. One of the guys was gonna retire and they'd been teaching me and teaching me how to, how to do maintenance, how to to Work on dump valves, and I was doing all that work on my own, because I had been learning for about a year and a half and I was doing it on my own, on my route. And this is the time I had all everything painted, everything was good me, my route was good, I didn't have to call them, I do my own maintenance, my own repairs on everything.
Speaker 1:And then, and he was leaving, and he said, man, you, they're gonna give you this job, you know? And I said I don't know, I hope they do well. Anyway, they didn't give me the job, they gave it to this other guy. And this other guy, whoo, he didn't even do that job, he didn't do the job he had at first. And they give him a job, they reward him with the job. So I go to Dennis. I said Dennis, what's the deal? I said you know. I said I know, I know that job. I've been, I've been learning that job. I don't even use those guys on my, on my leases, I do my own work. He says I know.
Speaker 1:He said, william, you do a good job, your wells are all painted. He says your, your units all work. He said you keep, you keep the oil going to the oil tanks, water going to the water tanks, gas going down again. He said you do a great job. And I said then why in the world Did you not give me that job and you give it to this other guy. And he says well, he says William, he said sometimes when you're a boss. And he said sometimes when you're a boss, you have, if you have somebody in a job that's doing an excellent job, a great job and and they're just doing everything right, and you have somebody that's not doing a good job, he says sometimes you, you keep the guy that's doing such a great job where he is because he's doing such a great job and you move the other guy into the to the another job, hoping that he can do it.
Speaker 1:Man, I Kind of got mad. I said that's the dumbest thing I ever heard, dennis, and excuse me. And he looked at me. He said he said what do you mean? I said listen, the thing is, if the guy can't do the job, I said why don't you think I've been working so hard? I said that's a way to get, to get people. That's why people quit doing the good job that they're doing, because they're overlooked and the promotions are given to people that are that everybody know is the worst employee out of here.
Speaker 1:I said Dennis, come on, man. I said. I said you get that. That. That doesn't even make good sense. If he's that bad, you ought to just run him off and promote somebody up and then hire somebody good that can do the job and will do the job. And he started laughing. He said William. He said let me tell you something. He said one day. He said you are gonna be. He said one day, you're gonna, you're gonna have my position. He said you're gonna be the boss out here, you're gonna take my job, he says. He said you could do it right now. And he says you're gonna be my job. And I said no, sir. I said no, sir, I'll never be a boss out here. And and he said he said well, why not? And I said I said well because, dennis, I said the first thing they do is they send you to a-hole school. And I didn't say a-hole, I said it, you know. I said they send you to a-hole school. And I said and I'm not a-hole, so I'll never be a boss. And I turned and I walked off.
Speaker 1:It was the end of the day, got my truck, went home the next morning when he came in, he, he looks at me and he kind of, that's just that's how he laughed. And he got his coffee and he sat down and he, he looked at me and he was doing that laugh and he said you called me an AO. I said no, sir, I didn't call you an AO. I said I'm not an AO, that's why I'll never be a boss.
Speaker 1:And he was such a great boss but he had no control In the position he was in. He was our supervisor and he was supposed to be the field supervisor, but the main supervisor is the one who picked who he was going to move where I had gone in and I had asked that job. I went in and said hey, why didn't I get it? They said you didn't ask for it. I said yes, I did. I said I came right in here and asked you for it and you told me that you was not going to put anybody in that position. I said in a week later you put that guy in it and I said he's the worst employee we've got. Now I love that employee. I know that we're meeting him with great friends now. He did leave the company and he came back and when he came back he was a lot better employee and we were great friends. We hunted and fished together and just had a good time.
Speaker 1:But I just want to tell you that sometimes God puts you in situations. See, I know that God had me in that job. Every time I got a check, I'd say Lord, thank you for signing my checks, even though I knew that Mr Orthorn had signed that check. But God had me there and he had people that were coming out and working on our wells and building pads and he had people around me all the time. So my ministry wasn't. It was changed and I started ministering to those guys.
Speaker 1:Listen, I know this is a little different than I've been doing, but I just want to share. I am. I'm no better than you are. I just want to tell you I'm no better than you are. I trust God. God has blessed me in my life. God will bless you in your life If you believe the word of God, stand on the word of God and come to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. I used to talk to Jesus every day in my truck. I'd say well, lord, what are we going to do with this? Well, today. How are we going to make this? Well today? So you know, you need to just say he was my best friend. He still is my best friend. That's what you need to do. Well, listen, I've got to go, I've got to get off of here. I just want to tell you I love you.
Speaker 1:Hit the subscribe button and then the little bell and you'll be notified when a podcast drop. Faithwalk1960 at Outlookcom is my email and listen, that's faithwalk1960 numbers at outlookcom. Drop me a line. My podcast can be heard anywhere. I heart Apple, google. Just go there, subscribe and you know, just listen, take the time and listen and share with somebody else if it blesses you. You know I'm not always going to be just heavy in the word. I'm going to share my life and my walk with Christ, because we all have a faithwalk. How's your faith walk today? Until next time, william Carroll and I'm signing off of Faithwalk.
