As we read Jesus’s interactions with the Pharisees, we get the sense that the Psalm 81 rebuke would still apply: “Oh, that they would but listen to me!” May we not be the same. May we read our Bible and listen to God’s word. But more that merely that, according to what we see in the center of the center of the psalms, may we listen by preferring God’s ways and counsel over our own ways and counsels.

Overall Israel disobeyed the Lord. They turned from his ways to their own.
We can say more, though. For mere disobedience sounds too external. It can imply their primary issue was their actions. It can imply the root issue was what they did or didn’t do with their hands, without much concern for their hearts, or heads—or ears.
What Is the Center of the Psalms?
As I’m reading and praying through the Psalms in my Bible reading, I’m reading through W. Robert Godfrey’s Learning to Love the Psalms. On the chapter for Psalm 81, Godfrey begins unlike he does for any other chapter so far. He writes, “Psalm 81 is a remarkable and important psalm in the Psalter” (142).
He says this for a handful of reasons. But primarily, it’s because of something I’ve never heard before. Godfrey writes, “In a sense, [Psalm 81] is the central psalm in the book of Psalms” (143).
Godfrey clarifies Psalm 81 of course isn’t central in terms of chapters (since there’s 150 psalms). Nor is Psalm 81 central in word count. Rather, Psalm 81 is central as “it is the central psalm in the central book of the Psalter” (143). There are five “Books” in the Psalms—divisions that are in the original text—and Psalm 81 is the middle psalm in the middle Book.
And thinking more about this, it seems that if anything, this is most likely what the Israelites saw as the center of their song book. With these five inspired “Books,” we can imagine that if an Israelite were asked, “What is the central psalm?” They probably wouldn’t answer “Psalm 75,” like we would with our focus on the 150. Instead, answering “Psalm 81,” since it is the psalm in the middle of Book Three would perhaps fit better.
The Center of the Center
Anyway, that’s Godfrey’s argument for why Psalm 81 is the central psalm in the Psalms.
What’s more interesting, however, is what the center of Psalm 81 itself is. If Psalm 81 is the center of the Psalms, what’s the center of the center? Godfrey writes,
“At the center of Psalm 81 are these words: ‘O Israel, if you would but listen to me!’ (v. 8b). For all the mysteries of God’s providence with Israel, here is the central truth: Israel was suffering a crisis of exile because she had not listened to her God” (143).
Fascinating, right? The central issue wasn’t merely or mainly disobedience or idolatry. Those were symptoms, results. What was the root? Not listening. Deciding to disregard God’s words. From there, everything fell apart.
The Diagnosis: Not Me, But Their Own Counsels
But in God’s word this root is even deeper still than just saying they didn’t listen—and it’s deeper for us. We can hear that Israel didn’t listen and imagine that they had closed off ears. But no one does. Instead, as God tells Israel, when we don’t listen to God, it’s because we’re listening somewhere else.
Notice how God talks in Psalm 81 when he diagnoses this central problem. Hear God’s specific judgment on their non-listening. I’ll italicize the ending of each line to get the point across.
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We followers of Christ are not exempt from sorrow, grief, sadness, and heaviness. Jesus himself wept. He wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) and wept at the death of his beloved friend Lazarus (John 11:35). He was distraught at the loneliness he would endure on the cross. The thought of the suffering he would bear brought him into such a state of distress that he sweated great drops of blood (Luke 22:44). Our great Savior knows what it means to be lonely. He knows the grief and sorrow we bear. He knows of the rain that never stops. He knows that Christians get depressed too. He knows what it is to be royal and yet suffer. 

When we wake up it is dark. When we come home it is still dark. This time of year can be a season of tremendous sadness. Some sadness emerges due to things like clinical and seasonal depression. Another sadness comes from the circumstances of the season. 

Seemingly every advertisement shows smiling faces, but for some reason, he doesn’t feel like smiling without his wife of 50 years beside him anymore. 
The family came to visit for the holidays just a few days ago, but it might as well be decades by the tears on her face. It was just a few years ago the kids were playing tag in the basement. Now one is a drug addict, and the other committed suicide Christmas Eve two years before. 
She’s thrilled to be in the embrace of her new boyfriend who asked her out over the Christmas break. The old boyfriend struggles to find words or motivation for anything and ends up quitting college after failing 3 out of 4 classes in the spring.  
The alarm clock disturbs a brief moment of restful sleep to remind the parent that all is quiet in the house, their little 5-year-old daughter won’t wake them up in bed anymore because she’s in hospice care with only a few days left to live. 

While many this time of year are in “shop until you drop” mode, some are in “weep until you sleep” mode. Despite all the efforts of commercialism to drive an anxious populace to buy happiness and exchange material gifts, whatever fleeting experience of excitement and enjoyment soon fades. Willy Wonka’s 4th quarter push to stimulate gains can’t compare to the crushing realities, tragedies, and struggles of the broken world we dwell in. The temporary timestamps of worldly pleasures fade away as the grim darkness and coldness of winter come with a truckload of haunting guilt, regretful words, and overwhelming circumstances. 
Why are some sad during this time of year? Because the grass withers and the flowers fall (Isaiah 40:8). Because nothing under the sun can provide lasting satisfaction, everything is wearisome (Ecclesiastes 1:8-11). 
The heaviness of this time of year is a burden for many. The cacophony of voices shouting words like “sale” “special” “discount” and “celebrate” echo as dark empty hallways in the hearts of those grieving, wounded, weak, and weeping. All the memories of loved ones and bygone days seem to pile up and throw themselves across the checkout counter of life during this season. I’ve seen it in the poor, and I’ve seen it in the rich. It’s a look that betrays the inward thoughts. There is nothing in this world that can bring lasting gladness. This world is gray. No, this world is worse than gray. It is overcast with a storm of tears and seemingly no wind to push the storm away from us. All is calm, but all is not bright. 
This time of year awakens in many of us the realities of death. Of relationships gone, of friends and loved ones beyond our present reach. Of opportunities lost, doors closed, and windows locked shut. For many, they wear a smile only because it is a socially agreed-upon thing to do. We smile outwardly because it is expected, while inwardly we rage, we curse, we fear, we long. 
In the long night of winter, we do not feel like merry-making. We sit in proverbial ashes and dust, waiting for the next time of fitful sleep to overwhelm our exhausted hearts. For many this time is the loneliest time of year. This is the time when death most tightly grips us with its ice-cold bruising grip. 
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Transgenderism and Marxism are closely intertwined. Rufo highlights the work of Rosa Lee who saw trans people as “the new vanguard of the proletariat” who will help “abolish heteronormativity in the same way that orthodox Marxism promised to abolish capitalism”. In short, argues Rufo, “All of society must be reorganised to affirm their identities and more importantly, their politics.” 

Transgender ideology is not going away. Understand the movement and how to respond by checking out this brand new documentary.
Transgenderism was a fringe idea just a few years ago. Now it is a booming industry.
It has been tempting — for Christians especially — to ignore the movement in hopes it will fade away like other fads.
Yet the ideology has only grown in strength, and now asserts itself in children’s classrooms, public libraries, sporting codes, TV, movies and politics.
A brand-new, 12-minute documentary has been released that explains transgenderism in clear terms and accounts for its wild popularity in Western nations.
How the Trans Movement Conquered American Life is the latest film by Christopher Rufo, a writer, political activist, investigative reporter, and contributing editor of City Journal.
Rufo’s previous documentaries have featured on PBS, Netflix, and international television. In prior years, the Daily Declaration has highlighted Rufo’s incisive commentary on Critical Race Theory and the poverty, homelessness, addiction and crime plaguing America.
How the Trans Movement Conquered American Life is possibly Rufo’s best film yet. 
The Transgender Empire
Rufo begins his commentary by declaring, “the transgender movement has conquered American life”. He lays out his case:
Activist teachers have converted classrooms into propaganda. Influencers are driving billions of social media impressions. And doctors are cutting up kids in the name of ‘gender-affirming care’.
The story goes deeper than you might imagine, featuring rage-filled intellectuals, a trans billionaire benefactor, and large-scale medical experiments in a Detroit ghetto.
“This is the story of the transgender empire,” he summarises — “how it came into being and how it hopes to change the face of American society forever.
The Origins of Transgenderism
As with the same-sex marriage debate of yesteryear, the way many people encounter transgenderism today is through human stories. It is understandable that people feel sympathy when hearing about the experiences of people who identify as LGBT.
However, Christopher Rufo warns that behind the human face of transgenderism is a political ideology that was carefully designed to desecrate the traditional Western way of life. He explains:
In the late 1980s, a group of writers, including Judith Butler, Gail Rubin, Sandy Stone and Susan Stryker established the disciplines of queer theory and transgender studies. They argued that gender was a social construct, used to oppress racial and sexual minorities. They denounced the categories of man and woman as a false binary that upholds a system of heteronormativity, the “white-male-heterosexual power structure”.
Rufo adds that the aim of these writers was to reduce traditional views of gender to dust. “The most visceral, dramatic way to achieve this,” he narrates, “is transgenderism” — “If a man can become woman, if a woman can become man, they believed, the entire structure of creation could be toppled”.
Susan Stryker’s contribution is especially noteworthy:
Susan Stryker is one of the founding theorists of the trans movement. In her best-known essay on ‘Performing Transgender Rage’, Stryker argues that the transexual body is a technological construction that represents a war against Western society. “I am a transsexual, and therefore I am a monster,” she wrote. “And this body is destined to channel its rage and revenge against the naturalized heterosexual order, against traditional family values, and against the hegemonic oppression of nature itself.”
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