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Hope is Alive…indeed.

Oklahoma City has a new dealer and the product is Hope.  Lance Lang delivers a powerful message about hope in his book: Hope is Alive: One Addict’s Story of Hope.

Lang is a son of a pastor who was part of a successful business.  But he is more than that; he is a drug addict.  His book talks about the facade that he had built, the hope that had departed, the dark journey that he undertook, and the eventual rock bottom that many people with substance abuse experience.

Lang’s hope meter had flat lined.  Rock bottom had come at terminal velocity and, as he describes it, almost killed him.  But like a defibrillator shocking a heart back into rhythm, God’s mercy shocked His hope back into Lang’s life.  “Hope is Alive” details how days of despair and uncertainty yielded to days of expectation, freedom, joy, and most importantly, hope.

Hope is Alive does a wonderful job detailing Lang’s personal journey through addiction and recovery.  Lang takes the lessons learned from his own personal story of recovery and gives practical strategies on how to experience success in their own life.  Although written from the perspective of someone who experienced a substance addiction, the principles of Hope is Alive are applicable to all addictions.  Lang makes it abundantly clear that recovery is a team sport and that recovery is intentional.

Lang talks about “Hope Partners” being people in his life that have an all-access pass to his life to make sure that he stays faithful to his recovery.  This lines up with the concept that God desire community both with Him and with each other.

Lang makes the most important concept plain throughout the work in talking about how recovery does not come by accident.  Recovery from addiction is intentional and a choice that someone has to make everyday.  Recovery from addiction requires substituting the negative influences, settings, and situations with positive ones.  Throughout Lang’s work, he offers practical and spiritual applications in an effort to give those in recovery the best possible chance for success.

The truth of the matter is that there is a hurt, habit, or hang-up that we all struggle with.  A result of the fact that we are sinful people is that we engage in habitual sin.  Hope is Alive is a resource to help tap into the restorative power of hope that God provides.  Hope is Alive is not just for those recovering from substance abuse.  It is for everyone who needs to realize that the God of the universe is offering the most powerful resource that the world has ever known.  The power of Hope.