Read that which hammers on your skull

The quote below from Kafka emphasizes the need to allow literature challenge our preconceived notions and rattle our temptation to make all things sweet and palatable. The Christian ought to take this quote seriously when reading their bible. The text of the bible can become sentimental if we don't read it with listening hearts and open ears.

"If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a hammering on our skull, why then do we read it? So that it shall make us happy? Good God, we would also be happy if we had no books, and such books as make us happy we could, if need be, write ourselves. But what we must have are those books which come upon us like ill-fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves, like suicide. A book must be an ice axe to break the sea frozen inside us." Kafka

Is all scripture reading biased – does God speak to us through it?

The search for spiritual direction in a group of people is somewhat troublesome to say the least. We all have our different opinions on things, we have different impressions as to where it lead us and depending on our exposure to historical tradition and scholarship we read it at different literal levels. I like the term ‘selective literalism’ (not sure where it comes from) to describe the way we engage with this ancient giant of literary writings - the bible. We love to read those parts we like and hardly ever read those sections that contradict our impression of God and God’s ultimate desire. So when we come together as leaders or people who are concerned about doing things in ‘Godly’ ways we are often forced into a conflicting situation due to our alternative ‘God directed’ views. What normally happens is that all who think this way congregate in this camp and those who think differently in the other. Stalemate! How certain can we be that our’ take’ is the right one? I believe the more invigorated we become that we are ‘right’ and they are ‘wrong’ is the first step to becoming a religious exclusivist. So how do we do it? How do we help a group of people ‘listen’ to God and make plans to do ‘God’s will’. I would love to hear how diverse our approaches may be.