The Mirror

Here’s the strange thing. I ask good questions for a living. As I coach worship leaders, I listen to what they say, what they leave out, what they focus on, what their perspective of reality is, and I ask questions from the OUTSIDE. I’m not better than them; I’m not a better leader than they are; I can’t outplay them as a musician. My value is that I’m not them. I’m not on the INSIDE.

Outside perspective is everything. Mirrors are outside perspective.

But how can you have an outside perspective on yourself when you are, by definition, on the inside?

I want to teach you to gain distance from yourself and your inside perspective so you can actually move forward.

I used to sit, read, and pray on my front porch every morning, and I’d see them – the things that annoy me. Things on my to-do list. The dead palm branch lying in the grass. The sage, rosemary, and lime plants that need to be weeded. The unreachable tree branch that slightly blocks my view of the valley below…how can I get up there and trim it?

I see these little irritations. Every day during these moments. And then all day I’d completely forget about them. Until tomorrow. And then I’d be frustrated again. And again. And again. The cycle repeated itself.

Finally, I was so frustrated and desperate, overwhelmed by a seemingly endless list of incomplete to-dos. So I stopped and wrote them down.

“Is that all?” My internal response to seeing such a short list that felt so big, until it was written on the page. “It’s ridiculous that I’ve been held captive by eight lines of text.” I thought.

But this is us. We are prisoners for lack of reflection.

We may not have good friends, mentors, pastors, or coaches in our lives to consistently ask us the hard questions, but my hope is that this teaches you to ask the right questions at the right time. Perhaps it will even equip you to be a connoisseur of questions for those you’re leading.

I want to equip you with a list of great questions.

Jesus, what do You want to say to me? What scripture do You want me to read? Lord, what is the good question You want me to ask?

God is like a pharmacist and the passages in the bible are the medications. If you take a sleeping pill for your drowsiness, it won’t help. If you take an antacid for your headache, you won’t feel any relief. He knows what you need today. Ask Him.

What am I feeling?

You may need to clear some space before being able to reflect well. I like to start by identifying what I’m feeling. Admittedly, this does not come naturally to me. When identifying my feelings, I often want a list to choose from. But if I learn to pay attention and ask the Lord, I can usually figure out what I’m feeling, at least enough to clear the air. Here’s what I mean.

Not every feeling is spiritual warfare. But there is often what I call a “low-grade” of something. Like a low-grade fever, or as I’m used to battling a low-grade fear. I’m not overwhelmed by fear or anxiety, but there’s just this little something irritating me, affecting me. If I don’t deal with it, I’ll likely miss how God wants me to live in this moment.

So, identify what I’m feeling. Then submit it to the Lord, rebuke it in Jesus’ name, or have a conversation with Him about it. Feelings are always downstream from thoughts. In other words, what I am thinking about produces what I feel. I may need to deal with a thought to rid myself of negative feelings. Again, submit it to the Lord, rebuke it in Jesus’ name, or have a conversation with Him about it.

What has the Lord said about this?

One of my best long-time friends from college was always a connoisseur of questions. I remember he would often ask me what the Lord had told me about an issue I was having. To which I would respond (with a slap to my forehead) “I forgot to ask!”

One time, as he and his girlfriend were walking out of our apartment, he stopped to ask me, “Is it your turn or my turn to clean the bathroom?” I paused to review my mental calendar. “I think it’s my turn.” “That’s what I thought,” he said as he closed the door. Oof.

What’s the best that could happen?

We’re great at being creative in the negative. What about the positive? Learn to flex this muscle to let our imaginations run wild in the direction of “what good could happen today?”

What other options could be possible? What else could be true?

“What are your choices when someone puts a gun to your head?
What are you talking about? You do what they say or they shoot you.
WRONG. You take the gun, or you pull out a bigger one. Or, you call their bluff. Or, you do any one of a hundred and forty-six other things.”
― Harvey Specter and Mike Ross in Suits

Whenever I’m trying to decide between two options, a great step is to think of two more.

What would have to be true for this to work?

We often think, “this will never work,” or, like Miracle Max said, “it would take a miracle.” Of course, since we serve the miracle-working God, something could work, and if we can think through what would have to be true for it to work, that’s a great place to start.

“If you were replaced tomorrow, what’s the first thing your successor would stop doing?” “If someone took your job, what would they immediately change?” “What do you do that your team puts up with because it’s you?” “What’s tolerated because you’re the leader?”

Andy Stanley asks these kinds of questions and they provide that distance from your current world.

If I were the healthiest version of myself, what is that one thing that needs to change?

The Five Faders teaches us to be the healthiest version of ourselves. One thing. Don’t make the huge, undoable list. What’s that one thing? (The previous question may have given you the answer.)

What’s behind that?

We were driving to my daughter’s 18th birthday party. She was holding the triple-layer cake for the 30-minute drive, and neither it nor the frosting was holding up well on Costa Rica’s mountainous roads. She was about to try to fix the frosting with her finger, and I snapped at her. I realized I had overreacted and began asking the Lord what was behind my emotions. I quickly realized that I’ve been hypersensitive to my son’s severe dairy allergy and didn’t want the cake to be ruined for him by something that could be on my daughter’s finger. I apologized and became much more relaxed simply by pausing to ask the question.

What am I believing about this?

We often get stuck in cyclical thoughts without stopping to face what we’re believing about something. Come to grips with it, call it out, and identify what it is. If everything is off, nothing is off. It’s just me. Remember to invite the Holy Spirit into this process!

I hope this gives you a helpful mirror in your life as you regularly reflect.

-Dave Helmuth
Author of the Five Faders and Founder of Ad Lib Music

The Mirror (Nº 466)