097 | Playing a Role to Heal the World

“Playing a role to heal the world” is one of our six core values here at Cultivating Sanctuary (SM).

God creates each of us with a unique combination of gifts, abilities, motivations, and personality traits. Each of us also has a unique set of experiences, life events, choices and decisions that shape our journey and how we move through the world. Because of this, each of us is equipped in different ways to play a role in the healing of the world.

I’ll acknowledge that there are a lot of reasons to feel discouraged about the multitude of ways that we as humans fail one another on both the individual and systemic levels.

I also look around and see reasons for hope as people fight for justice or for causes that uplift their neighbor (in the Jesus sense of the word). I have hope when I see people work for renewal on behalf of and in partnership with others. I have hope when people work towards healing in relationships or the environment. I have hope when people whose voices have been suppressed or marginalized are centered and amplified. I have hope when people plant a stake in the ground and say “The old reality stops with me!” or “The new reality starts with me!” I have hope when I see people working together for the common good.

We all have a role to play in the healing of the world. For each of us that can look like different things in different seasons. There is never just one right way. God’s possibilities are bigger than that.

The work of Cultivating Sanctuary (SM) serves our own lives so that we and those in our close circles can flourish and be well through life’s disruptions; but it doesn’t stop there. My prayer is that our being well is not an end unto itself, but ripples transforming love into the world.

Reflection Questions

What are some of the ways—big or small—you might or already play a role in the healing of the world?

Here are some questions to guide your reflection:

🌱 What do/might you do to help another person flourish? Why?

🌱 What brokenness or injustice cracks your heart open? Why?

🌱 If you could wave a magic wand, what system or situation would you transform? Why?

🌱 What organizations do/would you support for the positive impact they are making in the lives of who they serve? Why?

🌱 What individual—famous or not—do you respect for the way they are “playing a role to heal the world”?

🖋 I’d love to hear your response to any of these questions. Please drop a note in the comments.