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