I read the following quote on Dr. Ray Ortlund’s weblog today and wanted to pass it along. For my part, I too have found more food for my soul in reading deeper doctrinal works than I have in reading purely devotional books.
For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await others. I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.
—C.S. Lewis
quoted in R. L. Green and W. Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Biography
Maybe it is the way that I am wired, but the most direct and lasting path to my heart is through my head — which reminds me of another quote often attributed to C.S. Lewis: “the soul cannot rejoice in what the mind rejects.”
Via: Dr. Ray Ortlund