For People with Bishop Rob Wright
For People with Bishop Rob Wright
Pleasing
Ever feel the tug to shrink yourself so others stay comfortable? Pleasing people drains joy, while pleasing God frees us.
In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about the difference between pleasing people and pleasing God, and why living as our truest selves leads to freedom from fear and a deeper peace. Purpose stops being mystical and becomes practical through small, faithful steps that compound into a life of impact. They trace how obedience isn’t about rule-keeping—it’s the doorway to hearing God more clearly, knowing who we are, and unchaining our lives from fear. With God, we can trade our anxiety for a grounded sense of worth, and vague resolutions for purposeful action. Listen in for the full conversation.
Read For Faith, the companion devotional.
Our best version is when we sort of live into our fullest relationship with God. They're all uh all good upsides in that. Hard, true. Contrary to the world in many ways, absolutely true. But nevertheless, over the arc of our lives, we can know a peace, we can know a diminishing and decreasing uh sense of fear in our lives, and we can know a satisfaction and contentment that frankly the world just can't give.
Melissa:Welcome to For People with Bishop Rob Wright. I'm Melissa Rau, your host, and this is a conversation inspired by For Faith, a weekly devotion sent out every Friday. You can find a link to this week's For Faith and a link to subscribe in the episode's description. Happy New Year, Bishop.
Bishop Wright:Happy New Year. Happy New Year indeed.
Melissa:This week's devotion, you named pleasing based on Matthew chapter 3, verses 13 through 17. You want to share?
Bishop Wright:I'm calling this pleasing. Well pleased is what Jesus hears God say after his baptism. Pleasing God and pleasing people are two different things. People pleasing steals joy, and it's based in fear and a lack of self-worth. What pleases God is for us to live into the fullest version of our unique selves and to know peace, God's peace. What pleases God is for us to be unchained from fear in all its guises, and to finally recognize our worth does not have to be won through achievement. What pleases people is when we are as domesticated as they are. But what pleases God is when we are genuine and free.
Melissa:It's so perfectly timed too for the new year.
Bishop Wright:Yeah. That's the whole thing.
Melissa:Yeah, you know, it's it's it's it's uh the baptism of Jesus, right? So God is saying with whom, you know, this is my beloved son, with whom I'm well pleased. And I guess, you know, Bishop, you say what pleases God is for us to live into the fullest version of our unique selves and know peace. How do we do that? How do we how do we live into the fullest version of our unique selves? How do we unchain ourselves from fear?
Bishop Wright:Yeah, well, I mean, so step one, right? So Jesus is responding in faith like so many other people to John the Baptist's invitation to be baptized, right? So Jesus is responding to faith. So there's there's one way. That's how we begin to unchain ourselves from fear and begin to live more genuine and free, is that we actually actually and actively, right, pursue uh, you know, God uh through faith. That's the response, that's always the invitation 24-7, you know, seven days a week. Um, and you know, Jesus, we see Jesus in the Jordan River, he's baptized by his big cousin, uh John, and we see in Jesus a surge of certainty and a surge of self-awareness, right? And so what we ought to name here also in this story is that uh that uh obedience uh leads to divine disclosure. Uh isn't that interesting? So because Jesus has decided, Jesus decided to obey, and John decided to obey his purpose, that is, to invite people into a second chance with God, uh, somehow both of them get to know God more fully, uh, and they actually hear God's uh word. And so God is pleased whenever we respond to God's invitation to be the freest version, the most full version uh uh of ourselves. And so I think that's where we start. Um, you know, we have to acknowledge what chains us, we have to acknowledge what binds us, we have to acknowledge what our fears are. You know, the formula is always very simple. Uh, and these stories, uh, you know, throughout the Bible, in many ways uh nuance the same truth, that uh our best version is when we sort of uh live into our our fullest relationship with God. Um and they're all uh all good upsides in that. Hard, true. Um uh contrary to the world in many ways, absolutely true. Um but nevertheless, uh over the arc of our lives, uh we can know a peace, we can know uh a diminishing and decreasing uh sense of fear in our lives, and we can know a satisfaction and contentment that frankly the world just can't give. Um it pleases God in a funny way. It pleases God for God to be God to us, if that makes any sense. So God is kind of digging, I suppose, in a way that a parent or maybe even a grandparent especially uh has a deep uh satisfaction that their young one is finding their way, you know, into the right paths. Um, you know, I watch my mother-in-law, both my parents are deceased, but I watch my mother-in-law uh look at my uh my own children as they are young adults and finding their way and beginning to now echo some of the wisdom that's been passed along to them, uh, which affirms you know uh their intellect and forgiveness uh and being personable and being kind and generous to people. I watch my mother-in-law's face uh when these kids start to make those kinds of noises, and I see what I imagine you know what God's face must look like when we decide to live our best life according to the ways, the pathways that lead to real life, uh, a deep satisfaction in God.
Melissa:Yeah. You know, you shared a big P word earlier. You you talked about purpose. And and I think there's a lot of people who really want purpose, but aren't quite sure how to tap into or discover what that purpose might be.
Bishop Wright:Well, I don't know about wisdom. I I think that somehow we've made sort of purpose sort of a magical word. And I think it really needs to start with another word, which is really pedestrian, right? And so, you know, every day, you know, taking steps towards the things that we already know is a way to get to, you know, that really penetrating idea of my purpose. Um, you know, my purpose as a follower of Jesus uh is to bring heaven to earth, to join Jesus and his ministry of bringing heaven to earth, right? So that can look big and that can look small, um, uh, and that usually connects with the things that are life-giving to us. But we know at base we're supposed to help each other out. We know at base that we have, you know, supercomputers in our pocket called phones, and we can get a sense of the gaps that are in our midst. Um, we are walking towards our purpose when we are relieving um, you know, the poor of the misery of their condition, when we are feeding the homeless uh and working towards getting them shelter, when we are assisting young people and finding their direction, perhaps through tutoring. Uh, and if we have to have them happen to have the means, uh, making sure that there are means shared uh with people who don't have. I mean, so so purpose is not as magical as we want to make it. Uh, purpose is, hey, let's start today uh identifying the gaps that are in our midst and throw our discretionary time, uh, energies, uh, intellect, all the gifts that have been poured into us in that direction. Then I like to say to people, do that for a year. And then, and then uh out of that, you know, there's some some um uh well, there's some insight that's gained. And then it we might nuance it. We may find in our heart, after improving the condition of our lives and the lives around us, we may find out that we want to nuance it. We may want to say not just the poor, but women who suffer uh at the hands of domestic violence. Or we may say uh not just the hungry, uh, but uh but but those in a particular location and those uh who have particular and specific needs that somehow my life's journey has prepared me to be of great assistance. Um and then purpose uh will probably lead to us devoting more and more and more of our time to that good work. I think about uh Sister Helen Prajine, who was a guest on this podcast some years ago. She started off just writing letters to inmates on death row. That's all. And uh a nun came to her, an older nun came to her, and a group of nuns and did some teaching. And uh this nun invited uh all the sisters of the order and uh Sister Helen Prejean to just become aware of the circumstances of people behind bars and particularly those on death row. And she did so just by writing. And the writing became calls, and the calls became visits, and the visits became really taking up the plight of those incarcerated. Well, long story short, the yield of this, the fruit of this, was it changed Catholic teaching about life, about what we mean about um being pro-life, not just birth, uh, but actually really standing against capital punishment. And so, so that's an example of how we get to purpose. That's all Jesus actually does, interestingly enough. Um, you know, he takes up um the invitation to go deeper in faith at every intersection, uh, whether he's 12 and in temples and teaching, uh, or whether here he's uh seeing people follow him around and he needs to figure out how to provide lunch, uh, his first miracle, you know, the wine runs out at the party, he takes a step and tries to figure that out. So I I think let's let's sort of demystify purpose.
Melissa:You know, I'm also aware that the word shame and should are very closely linked. And I think at this point in time, a lot of people are, you know, well, I should do X or I should be doing Y. Where do we get to how can should and shame get in the way of fulfilling our unique purpose and um being our unique selves and finding peace?
Bishop Wright:Well, you know, um shame uh in the best sense of that, I suppose, means that we have an awareness somewhere in our in our soul, in our mind, in our body that we were made for bigger and better things. And um uh shame in its worst sense means that we are uh absolutely covered over and drowning in that. Um and so, you know, there are other words to use uh that have become shame, and and one of those is conviction. And I like conviction because conviction is better than this notion of shame. Conviction means I know that I am made for the better things than I find myself presently involved with. I know that my life is more meaningful than uh perhaps I'm living it out uh as. And so um I I think um I'm not proching, but but I but I think um we ought to interrogate some of those feelings sometimes. And and a deeper interrogation of those feelings means that I'm aware in my body. It means actually that I am in the made in the image of God and that that's alive, and that there's a there's a dialogue that's going on inside of me at a deep level. And that's why the should comes up, uh, because it means that I'm aware that I'm made for bigger and better things. Um I think the trick, of course, is to activate that, right? To say, I can't save the world tomorrow, I can't fix everything today, but I can take a step. And then the steps become, you know, a walk, and then the walk becomes a big time journey, et cetera, et cetera. So I I think, you know, in many ways, it's just that first step and deciding, you know, and in, you know, in a funny kind of way in the economy of what it means to be a human being, sometimes some things have to pile up on us before we finally decide in, you know, the in a sort of a uh uh divine defiance that I'm better than that. And then so in in many ways it has to pile up, and then we realize, okay, that is not my life. That is not who I am. And in a funny way, that's why, you know, this kind of podcast and preaching and teaching and and and the words of the saints that go before us are so instrumental because they they come as hammers in many ways to break us out of these prisons uh that we've sort of imprisoned ourselves with. And so, you know, what's interesting in Jesus' baptism, he responds in faith, he gets this surge of self-awareness, and he gets this surge of certainty about who God is, and that this present path that he's on is actually pleasing to God, which is his heart's desire. And he he goes into the wilderness uh, you know, and confronts the devil with only that. And that's why this is so important to know who we are and whose we are is our best defense for all the guises and the mischief of evil and deception uh and seduction that seeks to make us less than we are. And so, so, you know, in these simple stories in the Bible, which some people want to write off as as primitive fiction, uh I think they should look again because in these simple stories is a deep awareness of who we are and a deep awareness of of what life with God can look like for all of us.
Melissa:Yeah. You know, I you use the word convicted, and I I get the image of of Jesus, you know, rising from the waters, the spirit descending upon him, you know, and hearing the the words of God. And I don't know, the word wholeness is coming to mind and conviction, you know, again, many people are setting intentions or um New Year's resolutions. Um what does it look like to live life as a whole being healed?
Bishop Wright:Yeah. Well, we're on a journey to wholeness. That's what we're talking about. And in the best case of New Year's resolutions, um, we're we're acknowledging the fact that we're not quite whole, that we're perhaps spending too much time on screen and not enough time with people we love. Uh perhaps we haven't gone to the gym and taken care of our body uh as much as we as much as we should. Maybe we haven't been in in uh in nature. Uh my I go on a regular walk uh down by the river here in Georgia, uh and uh, you know, they call it forest bathing, you know, uh to be out among the trees uh and and how that reduces stress. I mean, I I think we know this in many ways. Sometimes we don't, but I think as a general matter, we know. And I think the guilt piles up, right? And so, you know, what I'm inviting people to do, not necessarily uh because of New Year, uh, but New Year's is a great occasion to begin again, uh, is to, you know, those things that you know are counterproductive to your best self. Let's do our very best, maybe even apply prayer to those things, not only resolution, but prayer. And, you know, we know that there's this idea in the Bible about 40 days. And 40 days is just sort of a wonderful way to talk about what it takes to move into a new cycle. And all the brain science that we're we're looking at now tells us that it takes about that amount of time to break old habits and develop new neural pathways. And so, here again, the Bible is wise. So if we could take up this kind of behavior for 40 days, if we could begin to change our life around uh just a bit, what we really want is what God wants for us, really ultimately. Our wills are aligned. It's just that uh, as the song says, we are prone to wander. Uh, because we think it, you know, in in many ways, we think that we know better than God. Um uh we think that God is inconvenient and a platitude and not really fit for the real world. When it turns out that pleasing God, you know, over sort of pleasing people and allowing ourselves to be domesticated uh actually leads to death, but following Christ actually leads to life.
Melissa:It's a tall order, but in the words of Desmond Tutu Bishop, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Bishop Wright:One bite at a time, indeed.
Melissa:Indeed. Well, thank you, Bishop, and listeners, we thank you for tuning in to For People. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Bob Wright, or by visiting www.forpeople.digital. Please subscribe, leave a review, and we'll be back with you next week.