All Episodes
Previous Next
Nov. 23, 2022 - Doug Collins Podcast
22:58
Be thankful for the little things because in the end they matter the most
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hey everybody, I don't know about you, but as you've watched out over the world, the war in Russia and Ukraine is not just isolated to Eastern Europe.
It's spread all over the world and you can see it in market instabilities.
You can see it here.
People who do not think that that war is affecting you, all you gotta do is look at gas prices.
You look at your food prices.
You see the global change that has happened.
But you know something that's also affected investments as well, and I've said all along, Legacy Precious Metals is your navigator.
They're the ones that see you through to get to the next level.
The good news about this is, even with market volatility, market instability, you've got options.
Gold prices are rising as investors turn to gold, and gold presents a hedge against this inflation and protects you against the weakening dollar, which we are seeing.
Legacy Precious Metals is the only company I trust to deal with gold and silver and the other precious metals.
You need this investment.
You need this as part of your portfolio to keep you buffered from what we're seeing in the world.
War and volatility in the market.
This is where you need to be.
Call Legacy Precious Metals today.
Be proactive about this.
Get on board with it.
Call them at 866-528-1903. 866-528-1903.
Or you can download their free investor's guide at LegacyPMInvestments.com. LegacyPMInvestments.com.
Your navigator in a volatile world of investments.
You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
In this house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Hey everybody, it's Doug Collins.
Welcome to the Thanksgiving edition of the Doug Collins Podcast.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and it is a great time for family and for friends and everybody to get together.
And look, I get that holidays can be tough.
They have been in my family.
I mean, when my mother passed away four years ago, you know, those first holidays were always tough.
And I've always, especially when I was pastoring, no matter what the holiday was, I always try to remember, you know, we celebrate the holiday with us, and especially Thanksgiving, Mother's Day, Father's Day, you know, those kind of things.
You know, events are very, and Christmas and all are very special, but they're special because they're typically celebrated with friends and family, and especially the family part.
So if you're, I'll just say this, if you're missing a family member this year, that's something that is going to be tough.
But it's also the memories that you've had in the past that will make this a day in which you can be thankful.
Thankful for the remembrances.
Thankful for the family member.
Thankful for that mom, that dad, that aunt, that uncle, that friend that is no longer at the table, but very much in your heart as we go forward.
So I just wanted to spend a few minutes with you today just discussing Thanksgiving, just discussing You know, some stories just to make you feel good as you're traveling, maybe to the family and the friends as we get together to celebrate a time in which we are just thankful.
So the things that we're thankful for are the things that are around us and it's simple things in life.
I've got a couple of stories I want to read to you today, and then we're going to think about these ideas of thankfulness.
And this one was from, I believe, a Reader's Digest story, and I just want to read it to you just to listen, because there's some things that really matter here.
When Mrs. Klein told her first graders to draw a picture of something for which they were thankful, she thought how little these children who lived in deteriorating neighborhoods actually had to be thankful for.
She knew that most of the class would draw pictures of turkeys or a bountiful laden Thanksgiving tables.
That was what they believed was expected of them.
What took Mrs. Klein but back was Douglas' picture.
Douglas was so forlorn and likely to be found close in her shadow as they went outside for recess, Douglas' drawing was simply this.
A hand.
Now, obviously, but whose hand?
The class was captivated by the image.
I think it must be the hand of God that brings us food, said one student.
A farmer, said another one, because they grow turkeys.
It looks more like a policeman, and they protect us, I think, said Lavinia, who was always so serious, that it's supposed to be all the hands that help us, but Douglas could only draw one of them.
Mrs. Klein had almost forgotten Douglas and her pleasure at finding the class so responsive.
When she had the others at work on another project, she bent over his desk and asked, whose hand was it?
And Douglas mumbled, it's yours, teacher.
Then Mrs. Klein recalled that she had taken Douglas by the hand from time to time, and she had often did that with the children, but that it should have meant so much to Douglas.
Perhaps, she reflected, this was her Thanksgiving and everybody's Thanksgiving, not the material things given to us, but the small ways we give something to others.
When I read that story, it touched my heart and it reminded me of how many times the little things in life that we're thankful for or should be thankful for.
Here was a student in the classroom who, as the story tells us, the whole class was not from very good neighborhoods.
They didn't have the, quote, lot that we talk about or we're always thankful for or we say we're blessed.
And Douglas drew, this little child didn't happen to have the same name, but he drew a hand and the hand symbolized to him his teacher who would take him by the hand.
And she was there.
She was that support.
She was something he may have been missing in his life and he was thankful that somebody was there.
You see, Thanksgiving is about things like that.
Thanksgiving is about, you know, what we're thankful for.
It's not the big things.
And I'm going to just be honest here.
As pastor for a number of years and still active in my faith, and I hear others who say things like, and we've all said it because it's true, we've been blessed.
Well, in our life, we've associated blessing and thankfulness and success with That we're doing something right or that something's going well.
And many times it is those things that we should be thankful for in ways that we've been given, maybe what we've worked very hard for, maybe some things in life we haven't or maybe even gotten help that we didn't know about.
But I often sit and wonder about the very same people in the same pews and in the same walks of life, maybe the same bus, the same subway, the same road that we travel every day.
That may not feel blessed.
They've had struggles in their family.
They've had struggles with their wife or their husband, their kids, their co-workers.
But yet every day they're able to get up.
They have the health to get up.
They have the get up to go.
They have what God, I believe, has given them the grace in life to continue.
And they are as blessed as anybody with the material or the fortune to get what they want.
And so when we think about Thanksgiving, my hope is that you think about Thanksgiving from a perspective of what are you thankful for?
So, and that may sound funny.
I remember a pastor of mine one time, he got up and it was around Thanksgiving and we were talking about what we're thankful for.
And Pastor Joe said he was leading prayers and everybody was supposed to say something that they were thankful for.
So again, very much like this teacher in the story that I read to you, everybody went and started going around and everybody would say something.
And some people, of course, say, I'm thankful for my husband.
I'm thankful for my family.
I'm thankful for my job.
I'm thankful for my raise.
I'm thankful for my promotion this year.
I'm thankful for my mom getting better.
And it went around, it went around.
And toward the end, Pastor Joe was going to be able to finish it up.
And he said something that made people laugh, but yet at the same time was very thankful for him.
And this was 40 years ago.
And again, pastors don't make a lot in most churches.
And Joe was able to get something and he said it in his prayer as we were finishing.
He said, I'm thankful for my red truck.
And everybody just sort of giggled a little bit.
Everybody else had been making the pronouncements of life and family and jobs.
And Pastor Joe just said, I'm thankful for my red truck that he had just gotten.
Now, I want you to understand this truck was not new.
It wasn't brand new.
It was used.
But for Joe, it got him where he needed to go and it was better than what he had.
He said, I'm thankful for my red truck.
I don't know about you, but it's a reminder to me of what we should be thankful for.
And all of the big stuff matters.
I don't want to play that down.
And families are something that I'm thankful for.
All shapes, sizes, and arrangements of your families.
Be thankful for them.
Because especially as you grow older, and I've experienced this now in 56 years of life, and I'll experience it even more as I go forward, there are members of our families that are no longer with us that you wish were.
And a family, in many ways, is yes, you're biological, you're adoptive, the ones that raise you, the ones you grew up with, that's what we consider family.
But more and more, especially in this world that are disconnected from living as close to their family, quote, biological family members as they used to, they live across the country, a family has taken on a bigger meaning of the community around you.
And being thankful for family and being thankful for those that you can trust.
Those people that will come pick you up when your car breaks down.
When things aren't going right, they'll pick up the kids or bring you a crock pot with some supper in it when the family's feeling down.
It's those kind of things.
Simple things of just saying, hey, I'm thankful for my family.
I'm thankful for my faith.
I'm thankful for a faith that says that I don't have to do it all.
I'm thankful for a faith that says that Jesus Christ came, died on a cross for my sins.
He was raised three days later and offers forgiveness for what I have done.
You know, that may sound simple.
And for some of you who don't believe as I do, okay.
Maybe what about are you thankful in your faith?
I believe that to be true.
I believe that is the path to life and eternal life.
And I'm thankful for that.
I'm thankful for faith that gets me through hard times.
That when I look at a world in which I can't make sense of it, it is my faith that God has given to me that I believe will see me through it.
It is that faith that I'm thankful for.
I'm thankful for forgiveness.
How many times are you glad to get forgiveness?
We all do things stupid.
We all take and do things that probably we regret the minute we say it.
I mean, you can see how many times you've been that person, you see the words coming out of your mouth and you're saying, I want them back, I want them back.
And when you see that and the thing that you should do is apologize or you seek that forgiveness and someone grants you that forgiveness, that's something to be thankful for.
It's also something to be thankful for when you deal with forgiveness, that you give forgiveness.
From my faith perspective, it tells me that I'm not truly forgiven unless I also forgive.
And so many of you are going in, and maybe this is a hard Thanksgiving for you tomorrow because there are family members or there are people in your life that are not going to be there.
You don't have the relationship you once had with them because something was said.
Something was done wrong.
Somebody hurt somebody else.
And forgiveness is not there.
Maybe the best thing for Thanksgiving this year would be to find forgiveness or to receive forgiveness from those that we are wrong with.
I know that's hard.
We don't want to give it up.
Too many times we want to hold on to the hurts around us.
We want to hold on to that.
And we actually massage it.
Somebody hurt us.
We take it almost like a badge of, you know, this was done to me and I'm going to keep it here and I'm going to keep massaging that hurt because I want everybody to know how bad I was hurt.
And the longer it goes, the more it festers.
And the reality is, it's better to live at peace.
And be at peace with all.
And that means not only giving forgiveness, but accepting forgiveness as well and moving forward.
I'm thankful for servants.
And I look around this world and I see so many.
I see the...
I travel a lot and I'm thankful for servants and I call them servants because they're out there serving others.
I'm thankful for the Uber driver.
I'm thankful for the taxi cab driver.
I'm thankful for the folks who clean rooms in my hotels when I'm out on the road.
I'm thankful for the folks who work in the service stations and gas stations along the way.
I'm thankful for the folks who get up and every day and still go to a fast food restaurant.
Because when I'm hungry, I want something to eat.
And they actually showed up in work.
I'm thankful for our police officers, our firemen, our first responders.
I'm thankful for my fellow men and women in the United States military who serve selflessly all across this world, even on this day of Thanksgiving.
I'm thankful for those servants.
And remember, especially those deployed, and if they're working in the military or in the agency of the government where they're not at home with their families today on Thanksgiving, I will tell you, when I was in Iraq in 2008 and The fall of 2008. It was my first Thanksgiving away from home.
I was missing football season.
I was missing Halloween.
I had young kids.
I was missing Thanksgiving.
I was going to miss Christmas.
And so far, I was there about three months when Thanksgiving hit.
And I remember getting up that Thanksgiving and I worked night shifts.
So my days and nights were mixed up a little bit.
And so I got up at about five in the afternoon because I had worked till seven the previous morning and got out and went to eat.
Before starting my rounds that night on the flight line.
And everybody's happy.
Everything, you know, as best we can.
We're in the dining hall and they tried their best to decorate it for Thanksgiving.
And we had turkey and we had, you know, special meal, cranberry sauce and everything.
And I'll never forget, as I sat down and I bowed my head and said my blessing or prayer of my food, I began to cry.
And I don't know why at the moment, but for the first time, I felt homesick.
I felt disconnected from my family.
I was in the middle of literally hundreds of people, but yet for the moment, I felt lonely.
And...
The other things in life, you know, Christmas would come and, you know, the other holidays and the football game, I never felt that until I felt that on Thanksgiving because it was a reminder to me that most every Thanksgiving that I had ever been a part of was with my family.
It was with the folks that I come close to no matter where I traveled or where I've been.
I was at home with my family, with my side of the family, with Lisa's side of the family.
We were there together.
And for that Thanksgiving, I was not.
So, When you're thankful today, I hope you're thankful for those who serve you.
For those of you who go out to eat today, be thankful for the ones who made the food and the restaurants.
Be thankful for the folks who are going to be there to help you along the way.
I'm thankful for doctors and nurses and for the others who give of themselves.
And for you who listen to this podcast, I am thankful for you.
Servants play such a role.
And servants are the ones that make life go around.
You know, I'm not always serious about some of these in my life.
I'm thankful for my truck.
I got a new truck this past, last year, and I'm still thankful for that truck.
It gets me where I want to go.
I'm thankful for things like puppies and kittens.
I'm thankful for children and their laughter.
I'm thankful for...
You know, the communities that still care about each other.
I'm thankful for a country where I can live and be free and I'm thankful for a country that allows me the freedoms to sit and do this podcast and talk to so many of you each and every week to do the things that matter to make life better.
These are the kind of things that I think we need to be thankful for.
Be thankful for the kind word.
Be thankful for the person who opens the door for you, who waits and holds the elevator when you're running to make it.
Be thankful for the little things.
Too many times in life, I believe it is perspective.
It is perspective of what we have or what we don't have that tend to make our decisions on if we're thankful or not.
Thankfulness is an attitude.
It's a gratitude that comes from living life and realizing that we've been each given gifts.
We've been each given opportunities.
We've been each given ideas.
We've been each given a possibility to help not only ourselves, but to help others.
And it's not the big things that I've talked about.
Maybe it is like the little kindergartner who drew a hand and what he was thankful for was the hand of his teacher who occasionally would hold it when they went outside.
They're little things.
You never know what they may do.
Thanksgiving is a day to commit yourself to a life of Thanksgiving, to a life of gratefulness.
And that may mean that you talk and talk to somebody at work that you notice rarely ever talks to somebody.
Maybe somebody that you know in your church or your synagogue or your mosque or maybe in your neighborhood or at the ball fields or at the gyms where you take your kids to go play.
That you notice a family that may be struggling just a little bit.
What if just a kind word was all that they needed?
Somebody to say, hey, life's tough, but, you know, I'm here, and if you just ever need to talk, I got a cup of coffee.
I would love to help you.
Or if I can actually help you, let me know how I can.
I wonder how many people wander along in this time frame in a world in which we're supposedly so connected but feel so disconnected for simply somebody to say hello.
Things like that is a perspective.
It's a perspective of saying, I believe...
That the world around me is a place that, yes, with all its faults and all its foibles and all its problems and everything we talk about in this podcast all throughout the year, a day like tomorrow, a day like Thanksgiving, is one in which I think our perspective is the thing that gets it done the most.
I have a final story for you that I wanted to read that sort of put this in perspective.
And it's about perspective of how we see things.
Remember, I've said this before.
I see the world through these glasses.
I see it better, worse.
I mean, I can still see, but some things are blurry.
When I put my glasses on, they clear up.
So everything I see is about perspective of how I see it through the lens of my life.
And this story highlights that very well.
It said a blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet.
He held up a sign which said, I am blind.
Please help.
There were only a few coins in the hat.
A man was walking by.
He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them in the hat.
He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words.
He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.
Soon the hat began to fill up.
A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy.
That afternoon, the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were going.
The boy, recognizing his footsteps, and asked, were you the one who changed my sign this morning?
What did you write?
The man said, I only wrote the truth.
I said what you said, but in a different way.
I wrote, today is a beautiful day, but I cannot see it.
Most signs told people that the boy was blind, but the first sign simply said the boy was blind.
The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind.
Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?
The moral of the story, be thankful for what you have.
Be creative.
Be innovative.
Think differently and positively.
When life gives you 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 100 reasons to smile.
Face your past without regret.
Handle your present with confidence.
Prepare for the future without fear.
Keep the faith and drop the fear.
The most beautiful thing is to see a person smiling and even more beautiful is knowing that you are the reason behind it.
Everyone, I hope you have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving.
Remember, it's about perspective.
And how you see the world will impact everyone else.
God bless you.
We'll see you again here on the Doug Collins podcast.
Hey everybody, MyPillow, I just wanted to let you know MyPillow is having the biggest sheet sale of the year.
You all have helped build MyPillow into an amazing company that it is today.
And now Mike Lindell, the inventor and CEO, wants to give back exclusively to his listeners.
The Perkow bed sheet set is available in a variety of colors and sizes and they're all on sale.
For example, the queen size is regularly priced at $89.98 but it is now only $39.98 with our listener promo code.
Order now because when they're gone, They're gone.
You're not going to be able to get it.
These FurCal sheets are breathable.
They have cool crisp feel.
They come with a 10-year warranty, 60-day money-back guarantee.
Don't miss out on this incredible offer.
There's a limited supply, so be sure to order now.
Call 1-800-986-3994.
Use the promo code COLLINS, C-O-L-L-I-N-S, or you can go to MyPillow.com, click on the radio listener square, and use the promo code COLLINS, C-O-L-L-I-N-S. Lisa and I sleep on these sheets every night.
You will want to have them as well.
They're a wonderful product.
Go right now, either 800-986-3994, code word Collins, or go to MyPillow.com.
Also use the code word Collins to get this discount.
▲
Export Selection