Ep. 63: UNLOCKING Psalms’ Power for TODAY’S Worship! w/ The Psalms Project

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, this is Andrew Marcus. Welcome to THE INDOUBT SHOW. We’ve got a wonderful program today. We have Shane Heilman all the way in South Dakota, and we are talking about The Psalms Project. He heads up a ministry called The Psalms Project where they have over 70 artists that have contributed, and they’re aiming to sing every single Psalm verse by verse of the Bible, which is so, so cool. And so we’re going to talk about the significance of the Book of Psalms, how it has changed his life going through this project, and how it’s so important for us to immerse ourselves in this book. And so we hope you enjoy today’s program. God bless. All right, everybody, we have Shane Heilman in Rapid City, South Dakota. How are you doing today, man?

Shane Heilman:

Doing awesome, man. How are you doing?

Andrew Marcus:

I’m doing great, bro. Thank you so much. I know we scheduled this and we had to cancel a few times, so I’m so grateful for your time today. For those who are watching on YouTube or listening in audio world who might not be familiar with you or your ministry, tell us a little bit about who you are, what you’re doing because I love what you’re doing, so fill us in with what’s going on.

Shane Heilman:

Yeah, thanks, man. So I lead something called The Psalms Project. And The Psalms Project is a band essentially of all kinds of people that I lead, but it’s a band putting all 150 Psalms to music in their entirety. So we include every verse of every Psalm, and we really try to tell the entire story of the entire Psalm from beginning to end with music, with full production, different lead singers, trying to use the very best musician and production talent that I can find. And yeah, we basically try to take the Psalms and help them be more understandable for people and also really pleasant to listen to so that people understand them better, internalize them better, can worship along with them. So that’s basically what we do is put Psalms to modern, fully produced, artful, hopefully good music.

Andrew Marcus:

Amazing. So how far are you along right now? Tell us where you’ve got to.

Shane Heilman:

Yeah, so I started writing these, it’s a long story, but really kind of got going with writing these back in 2009. Right now we just released on our website volume six, which covers Psalms 47 through 55. So 55 is about as far as we’ve gotten with the full recording production side. As far as writing goes, I’m a little ahead of that. I just finished Psalm 65 writing wise, and I’m working on Psalm 66 right now.

Andrew Marcus:

Amazing. That’s so cool, man. Do you go through different translations I guess to kind of see how it fits musically? I could imagine that being challenging.

Shane Heilman:

Yeah, definitely. So my process works like this. Usually I work off of the ESV, NASB, NIV, kind of those main modern English translations that are fairly literal. NIV is more of a phrase by phrase or more of a dynamic equivalence I think is what it’s called. But I usually go off one of those and then as the song is developing, I actually really like using this website called BibleHub.com. Maybe you’ve used it, but what’s really nice about it is if you pull up a verse, it’ll show you how that verse is translated in 30 different translations all on one page. So that kind of helps me see you go down, you’re like, okay, I see this is the main way it’s said, but these are some other ways that it’s also said, and that helps give me ideas so that I’m sticking with the meaning of the verse, but also gives me some other options syllable wise, and maybe even sometimes rhyming wise.

So yeah, I use a variety of translations, but I also read commentaries to try to make sure that I’m capturing the essential meaning of the phrase as much as possible. So I try to stick with a modern translation as closely as I can, but where we do need to deviate because there’s just too many syllables or something just may not come out in a way that people don’t understand very well then I like to borrow from other translations in a way that still is accurate, but maybe helps people get it a little better.

Andrew Marcus:

Totally, man because I can imagine how hard that would be as a songwriter myself, just trying to navigate all the syllables, all the things. Why is it so important for us to immerse ourselves in the Book of Psalms?

Shane Heilman:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, first of all, just in the word of God as a whole, obviously. Well, like the Psalms themselves say, I have hid your word in my heart. Why? So that I may not sin against you. It puts God’s character into us. It puts God’s thoughts into us, His mind into us, the mind of Christ. So obviously putting the word into us transforms us because it kind of holds a light up to what’s inside of us and forces us to make that decision to submit to it or to rebel against it. And hopefully as Christians we submit to it as we submit to the word, obviously, that transforms us, transforms our minds. But as far as the Psalms in particular, obviously there are a lot of things in the Psalms that don’t always fit well with modern evangelical Christian sensibilities. You’ve got Psalms that have passages that are somewhat uncomfortable, and a lot of people don’t really know what to do with them, and we certainly don’t sing them in worship very often.

In fact, sometimes these passages even feel like, are they even scripture? Is this something that’s for Christians today or not? And so I think it’s important to read the Psalms because as we go through the Psalms, I think what I’ve noticed are certain things that go against what I would call just modern evangelical Christian assumptions about what God’s like and really teach us something altogether different that I think is valuable for us to know and consider. And so I could give a couple quick examples, but I mean, some things I’ve seen just patterns within the Psalms over the years is you see the sovereignty of God so powerfully in those Psalms, and that’s really, really important. And also you see the wrath of God in the Psalms, which is a theology that’s in the Bible. We need to get comfortable with it, think on it and worship God for it, because every aspect of God is good.

There is no darkness in Him. So even His wrath is good, His judgment is good. How does God judge? What are the different ways He judges? What are the different punishments He brings about? Those are things that help us understand who God is and His character and help us as people know, okay, what is the right way to handle discipline or punishment in society as a whole? I think we’ve lost sight of some of those things which is maybe why our society’s in the state that it’s in. I think frankly, we’re too soft on sin in some ways. So I think reading the Psalms has really reformulated some of my theology to I think be more biblical in those ways and other ways, and also just the depth of the love of God. I don’t think we fully understand the depths of the love of God in evangelical Christian society.

The love of God does include His discipline like it says in the scripture, whom He loves, He disciplines. So just a deeper understanding of all the aspects of God’s love other than just, well, He’s really nice. Well, He is really, really nice and really, really patient. But how does that manifest itself in the life of the believer? I think some of those things we’ve lost by kind of ignoring certain parts of the Psalms for sure. There’s so much more I could go into, but there’s so much theology in the Psalms that I never saw before when I was just reading through them without studying them.

You know how when you’re reading the Psalms, you’re reading through them and you’re looking for “the good verses”, the ones that we understand in our modern context, and we skip over the stuff that’s kind of culturally a little bit we don’t have our feet on that very well, so we skip over it. Or phrases that are more, again, culturally specific or like, well, I’m not sure I like that. I’ll just skip over it. And I think we miss so, so much when we don’t fully experience and study them fully when we’re just kind of skimming them for what we want to see.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think you’re bang on, man. And even when you think of our modern worship today, we’re both worship leaders, songwriters, the church, a lot of churches are just doing the latest songs that honestly sound like just love songs to a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a husband or a wife or whatever. We don’t sing a lot of Psalms and there’s not a lot of lamenting and there’s not a lot of just this deep theological worship in a lot of modern day churches. It’s interesting you say we find ourselves in these interesting predicaments because we’ve lost this foundation. Do you incorporate a lot of these songs you guys are writing in your worship sets, or how would you encourage people who maybe attend churches or are worship leaders that have not included this type of worship and just deep theological worship in their churches?

Shane Heilman:

Yeah, absolutely. Great question. So the tricky part of doing entire Psalms obviously is some of them get very long. And of course there are Psalter hymnals that are fantastic that there’s tons of them that have been created over the centuries where they’re designed for congregational singing. And so I’ve kind of gone through an evolution a little bit. So when I first started the project, I was really just trying to create great music for people to listen to and hey, if one of these happens to be one we can sing in worship because you can learn it quickly and easily because it’s shorter or simpler or whatever, great. So I’d say there are definitely some in our catalog that work well for modern worship. They do get sung, CCLI, mine are on CCLI. I do get checks from CCLI, so I know people are singing them.

So I would just encourage people to listen through and if you find something that you think your congregation really love, then use it. A lot of the songs, frankly, are just probably too long and just have too many different melodies going on to keep it interesting to sing it congregationaly. But yeah, I would just encourage worship leaders, just pick songs that are as scripturally based, scripturally sound as possible, and challenge your congregation with maybe some theology and some ideas in scripture that maybe you haven’t sung before, maybe you’re a little uncomfortable with. I think it’s important for us as Christians to wrestle with what’s there rather than to obviously try to tiptoe around what’s there. It’s there for a reason. All scripture is God breathed and is profitable for teaching, for rebuke, for training and righteousness. And so yeah, I would just encourage worship leaders if you use some of our songs, great. Hey, pull out the old Scottish hymnal.

And one thing I’ve been doing recently, I’ve noticed this in the last probably 10 to 15 songs I’ve written, I’ve noticed my songs moving a little bit more in kind of what I’d call a metrical direction or a little more in a hymny or a little more of a congregational direction as I’ve moved along. I think when I was younger, just at first, I just wanted to create awesome art, so I just wanted something great for Christians to listen to that they could internalize the Psalms. But now as I’m going along, I’m seeing more of the value in congregational singing, and so I’m trying to move more in that direction now.

So you’ll probably see my earlier stuff is a little wilder, and now my later stuff is getting a little bit more, you’ll see the move to a little bit more of a congregational style. So I’m trying to move in that direction. And actually what I’d like to do is create kind of both, create more of the artistic versions that just go where the psalm goes and let it do its thing. And don’t worry about the congregationality of it as much. Of course, you want to write good melodies, but don’t worry so much about the congregationality, but also I’d like to create more volumes of just, these are great congregational hymns.

Andrew Marcus:

Oh, that’s a great idea.

Shane Heilman:

I would like to do to do both. Right now I’m trying to do both at once, and I’m kind of seeing where I need to kind of maybe let them both breathe a little bit.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, no, that’s really cool. I really like that. All Psalms, and this is a question that maybe some people don’t know the answer to, but are every single Psalm a song?

Shane Heilman:

Yes. So it is interesting though what the word psalm actually means. So we get the word psalm from a Greek word [foreign language 00:11:49] which literally means song. So psalm literally means song. But then in the Hebrew, it’s kind of interesting, the word for Psalm in Hebrew is mizmor. And so sometimes in the Psalms where it says like a Psalm of David, well, that’s literally saying I believe, I hope I don’t get this wrong or else I’ll be embarrassed later, but I believe it says a mizmor of David. That’s the Hebrew word for Psalm is a mizmor. But the Book of Psalms is not actually called Psalms for the Hebrews. The Hebrews call it Tehillim, which means praises. So the Book of Psalm is literally called praises by the people who wrote it.

But yes, every Psalm in the psalter, my understanding is that these were songs that were composed and used. I mean, they were obviously some written as devotional poems to God, but then eventually were picked up and used as corporate worship songs for the temple, for the cultic temple when they were singing together. So yeah, my understanding is that these Psalms were songs. This is a compiled song book by the song leaders of Israel.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, so cool man. When you mentioned Psalm 52 where it talks about God’s going to get you, God’s going to get you, but God. I love how a lot of the times you see but God and it turns into this praise and worship. And I’ll tell you, I mentioned earlier that we had to cancel a few times and I felt really bad about that, but I was at a meeting with a dear friend of mine, his name’s Ivan, he’s a theologian. He wrote an amazing commentary on Proverbs and teaches Psalms classes at a university here.

And we had a meeting and at the end of the meeting I was just in a lot of pain and I just kind of broke down weeping because I was just in so much pain and he felt so bad and he was praying for me. And his one recommendation for me is like, brother, go home and when you get home, read the Psalms is what he said. Open the Bible, read the Psalms. And I thought, that’s fascinating advice. Why would someone, when they see me suffering or going through hardship, why would his first response be, go home and immerse yourself in the Psalms? Tell us the importance of Psalms and what it does to our souls.

Shane Heilman:

Absolutely. Yeah. I think what the Psalms do is they really give us a very I think clear and specific way to approach God and to have a relationship with God. It’s kind of like almost like here’s what a relationship with God looks like if you’re talking to Him, which I find super helpful. And obviously David… A lot of the Psalms I found have very similar elements to them. They may not always be in the same order. They’re not always the exact same structure. Sometimes they bounce from different elements to different elements, but they almost always end up in the same place, which is really interesting. I’ll get to that in a second. But here’s some common elements we see in the Psalms, and I think they are instructional for us as to why they are so helpful to us in prayer. So I think maybe one thing your friend was referring to is when we read the Psalms, what we see David doing is he is obviously, he’s crying out to God.

I love this because it seems like David’s first move is always to go to God with his issues because obviously as humans, our tendency is to go to people to comfort us or to go to entertainment or just think and agonize to ourselves. It’s interesting, Psalm 13 says, “How long must I search for answers in myself all the day long?” He’s kind of like, I am tired of trying to just figure it out myself. This is not working. But anyway, so first thing he does, he turns to God, he cries out to God and goes to God. It’s very important. I mean, it seems super simple, but we’re really bad at it. You know what I mean? Going to God first because God was David’s everything. I mean, God was David’s source of counsel and wisdom and love and strength and power, all that. David saw God as his source for everything.

He went to Him because God solved everything for David. But anyway, another thing he does is David articulates his problems to God and his feelings very specifically. And again, that seems so simple, but we’re really bad at that. But one thing it’s really good to do, I think, is to just if we’re struggling with something inside, of course Philippians says, “Let your requests be known to God.” What does it say? “Don’t be anxious for anything but make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God,” there’s something about telling God, God, this is what’s going on. This is how I’m feeling. This is what this person is doing. And that can feel awkward to us because obviously God knows what’s happening, but I think it’s for us, there’s something about it helps us process the situation and something about telling it to God reminds us that this is not too big for God, right?

There’s something about that, telling all these problems, and you see this happening to David that’s really interesting. David will be saying, God, they’re doing this. They’re doing that. I feel like this. I feel like that. Doing this seems to bring David to a better place pretty quickly actually. Because he’ll start out the Psalm, I feel like this, I feel like that, oh, this stuff’s going on. But then he is like all of a sudden it’s almost like the light turns on for David. He’s like, but wait a second. This is not a problem too big for God. But God, you are the God who does this. You’re the God who does that. It’s like he wakes up to the truth all of a sudden. You know what I mean? So there’s something about pouring out our hearts to God and it literally says that in Psalm 62, “Pour out your heart to Him.”

When we do that, there’s something obviously cathartic for us, but also as we’re talking to God, there’s something that reminds us that God’s like, God hears this and God can handle it. This is not a big, we suddenly realize these actually aren’t big problems. There’s something about that. And then also then David goes into sections of confidence, and this is where he starts to declare, actually declares what God’s going to do. It’s really interesting. He’s so confident in prayer because he’s this covenant relationship with God. David understands life in terms of covenant. God, you’ve made these promises so you’re going to do them. I mean he just got that confidence about him. These people are being wicked and I have not done anything wrong in this situation. I’m actually trying to love them. So you’ve promised that the wicked won’t prosper, but that you’ll take care of the righteous.

So that’s what you’re going to do here. That’s how David saw things. And so he goes to the section of confidence where he’s like, you’re God over this, you’re God over that, and this is what you’ve promised and this is what I’m clinging to, and this is what you’re going to do. And this kind of elevates David into just pure worship. So after the confidence, all of a sudden he ascends to the end of the Psalm. This is where almost all Psalms end up, which is really, really encouraging and fascinating. They almost all end with confident worship. No matter what situation David’s in, he ends in a place of just like, and then God when you do this, when you deliver me, when you do this awesome work, I’m going to praise you. I’m going to do this. Or he even praises God for what’s going to happen.

And when he’s in a terrible situation, he’s already praising God for what God is going to do. He ends the Psalm ecstatic. So you see David go literally, and Psalm 13 is a great example. It starts with, “How long, oh, Lord, will you forget me?” Six verses later, he says, “I will sing praise to the Lord for He has dealt bountifully with me.” So he goes from that to that in six verses. So many examples, Psalm 54 is only six verses, but it has all these elements. You can see them laid out. First thing, David just lays out his basic prayer. God vindicate me by your name, save me by your might. That’s what he is wanting. Then he says, “For evil men pursue me. They’re coming after me.” He’s telling God his problems. He’s telling God what’s going on. Then he goes into confidence.

“Behold, Elohim is my help. Adonai sustains my life.” And then he says, “I’ll praise your name, oh Lord, for your name is good.” So he kind of goes from supplication, telling God what’s going on, confidence declaring the truth, and then worship. That’s the progression of the Psalms. So I think that’s why your friend told you to read the Psalms, because even when David’s like, you think about these situations like Psalm 34, Psalm 57, David is in the cave hiding from Saul in those Psalms is what it says. And so he’s on the run probably feeling very lonely, living in a cave, not a great situation. Definitely the situation where you could really despair. But read those Psalms and see how David responds to those situations. He overflows with gratitude and worship in those situations, even in a really, really tough spot. So the Psalms are instructive for us about how we can have joy and worship God no matter what the circumstances because of who He is.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. That’s so good, man. I love how it ends with such confidence and how you can see that every time. It just kind of like what my friend Ivan said is like, it’s okay to lament. It’s okay to complain and bring your requests, but he said, don’t grumble. There’s a big difference between grumbling and bringing your complaints. So God, this is how I feel. And he compared it to wandering in the desert and just grumbling and grumbling compared to David going through this hardship, but God, and it transitions into this confidence and this praise and worship. It’s okay to be real. And for all those who are watching and listening, this is a great example of what prayer life should look like, just being real, being honest, sharing how you feel, sharing your struggles, what’s going on. And you’re right, it’s fascinating. I’ve been in ministry for a long time and I’m really bad at it.

I’m really bad at just like, okay, I’ll take meds and I’ll do physio and chiro and acupuncture, and I’ll do all the things first before saying, hey, Lord, I’m really struggling physically and I just need you to touch me and help me and give me the strength and then turn it into a confident worship. How easy I just turn to myself and to others or numb myself by watching something funny, whatever the case is. It seems like prayer and going to God is almost a last resort instead of a first response. And so the Psalms really do help us get that recalibrated and get the right process. Just be real with God. Go to God first. David went to God first every time. That’s so encouraging, man. One more question for you. And then just out of curiosity, since you’re immersing yourself in the Psalms and you’ve been all about it, do you have a favorite Psalm?

Shane Heilman:

Yeah, I do. I actually vacillate between two, but even now, I’m vacillating as I sit here. So I’ll start with one of my favorites for sure is Psalm 32. And what I love about Psalm 32 is it’s such a picture of the gospel. It’s such a picture of the complete forgiveness we have in Christ. Of course, Paul actually quotes it in Romans 4, in reference to the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord does not count any iniquity. I love that we have that right there in the Psalms that it says, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not count iniquity.” He doesn’t count iniquity against him. And it goes into when I kept silent, and this goes back to what you were saying before, pour out your heart to Him. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day and all night.

These visceral pictures of agony we see in the Psalms, which is really reassuring to us, like, oh, someone else feels like that, cool. But when he kept silent, but then I acknowledged my sins to you. I did not cover my iniquity. I laid it bare before you, and then I received forgiveness of my sin. And it talks about just really almost salvation experience. And then at the end I love it goes this kind of instruction. It’s almost like he says, “Blessed is the man who’s totally forgiven.” Now, let me tell you how I got there. I was in this period where I was hiding stuff from God. I wasn’t coming to Him. I wasn’t in the light, I was hiding in the darkness. But then I came to Him, he forgave my sins. Then he is like, now listen to me. At the end He’s like, now listen, listen.

And I love how David, he’s such an evangelist. So many times in the Psalms when he’s having these experiences, he turns to us and he says, do this. Listen, trust the Lord. Trust the Lord. He’s really exhorting us from the Psalms. I love how King David can exhort us directly from the Psalms. He’s like, listen, trust the Lord. So you see at the end of the Psalm, he’s like, listen, here’s my instruction. Don’t waver from Him. And sometimes he just says, it ends with, “Rejoice in the Lord to be glad all you righteous. Shout for joy, you upright in heart,” is how it ends, because the gospel’s not only good news, the gospel is the best news you could possibly conceive of. No human being could possibly invent better news than the gospel. That’s what I love about Psalm 32.

And then Psalm 40. I also love because it’s my testimony, it starts with, “I waited patiently for the Lord. He listened to me and heard my cry. He brought me out of a horrible pit, out of a miry clay. He set my feet upon a rock. He put a new song in my mouth, the song of praise to our God.” Because I was suffering from depression in my teens. I was pretty lost and the Lord just found me. He just plucked me out.

And by God’s grace, I haven’t experienced depression for 25 years. I was just totally delivered. So that Psalm really speaks to me about just, I relate to it. That’s my story. I was in a miry pit and He just grabbed me, took me out. He set my feet on a rock, the rock of His word. He put a new song in my mouth, which is kind of literal for me because look at me now, I’m singing. But that Psalm obviously is a favorite of mine too. And those are probably two of my favorite songs we’ve done as well. I sang Psalm 40 myself because it’s just so personal to me.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, that’s a good word too, because a lot of people who are watching may be struggling with depression and just even realizing, hey, some of our heroes in the faith wrestled with being down.

Shane Heilman:

Absolutely.

Andrew Marcus:

Don’t like you’re alone in this.

Shane Heilman:

Absolutely. Yeah, Psalm 42 is a great example of that. I think Martyn Lloyd-Jones actually wrote a book about Psalm 42 called Spiritual Depression because that Psalm 42, a lot of the Psalms really speak vividly about depression in a way that people who are depressed really relate to. Along those lines, because of my heart for people struggling with depression and anxiety, we actually put together a collection of Psalms called Psalms for sleep, and it’s a collection of only our quietest, both soothing Psalm arrangements. So it has Psalm 91, Psalm 23, Psalm 42. And those Psalms specifically, I made that for people struggling with depression and anxiety, who are struggling with sleep disturbances or trouble sleeping because that’s common for people struggling with depression and anxiety is trouble sleeping, just trouble calming their minds down.

And so people have really, really enjoyed that just as a resource, just listening to the word of God, because obviously I believe that the best cure for anxiety is the word of God, believing the word of God because I think the main cause of depression and anxiety is believing lies, we’re believing lies. And it’s easier said than done, but just focusing our minds on the truth. Taking every thought captive, believing the word of God. That’s what lifted David out of moments of depression was he’s like, but this is your word and this is what you’re going to do. And he chose to believe that, and he chose to worship according to that, and he chose to expect that answer from God.

Andrew Marcus:

Bro, I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for spending time with us and all the best to you as you continue this amazing endeavor.

Shane Heilman:

Awesome. Thanks so much, brother. Thanks for having me. God bless you.

Andrew Marcus:

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today. For more great content, check out THE INDOUBT SHOW on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you stream your podcasts. We hope you enjoyed it today. Feel free to check out Indoubt.ca We have some great resources available to you. Have an awesome day. Hey, well thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. Listen, I want to tell you something very exciting. We have a free premium for the month of April. If you go to Indoubt.ca, we have a booklet called Missions at Our Door, how we can be reaching our New Neighbors for the Gospel. Look, we don’t have to look far to know that we can be on mission everywhere we go, and so this is a great resource for you. You can go to Indoubt.ca, there’s a promo code there. God bless you.

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