I have been feeling this uneasy pressure lately that I am becoming engulfed by media and what it is developing me into. Then I read “Vertical Self: How Biblical Faith can help us discover who we are in an age of self obsession” by Mark Sayers. This is ultimately a book about finding our true identity in God as we move more towards peace and balance in our lives. But ultimately I saw it as a great eye opener of how our culture and media is imprinting its identity and expectation on us.

Sayer takes great pain to move us from our horizontal self that is being formed from our surroundings to being a part of a greater reality, our vertical self. He takes a new and updated approach on the classic literature we have on holiness and purity. Through a tremendous amount of stories, studies and personal experiences the author brings you right into the book. A chapter does not go by where you do not see yourself or someone you are in close relations with in the words he writes.

He hits hard our concept of cool, sexy and life being about “me”. Because of these pursuits for horizontal experiences we have lost the vertical experience with God. We have become consumers of Christianity and have not allowed it to change us.

This is a great read. Not to heavy, not to light. I have personally started to change some of my life habits as I detox a bit from my horizontal self.

 

“I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review.”

 

 

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