Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better

by Brant Hansen

I can let stuff go, because it’s not all about me. Simply reminding myself to refuse to take offense is a big part of the battle.

God knows others’ private motives. We don’t. God knows our private motives. We don’t. We think we can judge others’ motives. We’re wrong.

Oh yes, the heart is deceptive. And that calls for humility above all else, because my heart isn’t deceptive because it fools other people. It’s deceptive because it fools me.

Your life will become less stressful when you give up your right to anger and offense. And by the way, if you don’t, you’re doomed. So there’s that too. C.S. Lewis wrote:

traffic went from being an exercise in anger to “forgiveness practice.” Life is so much better that way.

Perhaps a big part of being less offendable is seeing the human heart for what it is: Untrustworthy. Unfaithful. Prone to selfishness. Got it. Now we don’t have to be shocked.

War is not exceptional; peace is. Worry is not exceptional; trust is. Decay is not exceptional; restoration is. Anger is not exceptional; gratitude is. Selfishness is not exceptional; sacrifice is. Defensiveness is not exceptional; love is. And judgmentalism is not exceptional . . . But grace is.

Because that’s the thing about gratitude and anger: they can’t coexist. It’s one or the other. One drains the very life from you. The other fills your life with wonder. Choose wisely.

Don’t condemn the culture; redeem it.

a recent study found that people who join causes online are not more apt to actually do something—they’re less likely to take action. According to research from the University of British Columbia, if you click “Like” on “Help the Poor Children of Wherever,” you’re actually less likely to give actual money to help the actual poor children of Wherever.1 It’s “slacktivism” in action. (“Inaction” is more accurate.)

The Bible gives us ample commands to act, and never, ever, says to do it out of anger.

When you start practicing it, you realize: choosing to be unoffendable means actually, for real, trusting God.

So he’s a Christian, and also a great-looking, tall, athletic, wealth-making, beauty-queen-marrying, Special Forces–serving, celebrity-befriending, weapons-bearing, multiple-language-speaking, business-starting, cutting-edge-equipment-inventing, world-hopping, child-saving plastic surgeon. And there’s one more thing . . . He’s insecure.

It’s not merely that we’re not attentive to the fact that God loves us. I suspect many of us actually just don’t believe it.

We don’t run away from it. We run toward it. And we run toward it knowing full well that people may thrash about, scream, punch, kick, curse, cry, and yell at God and us . . . and then, when they look up, wondering, Are you still there? . . . we’re still there.

It may also have been obvious to you, for a long time, that “ministry” itself—serving others—has to involve deciding not to be offended. It’s not an option. It is the essence of ministry. It finally occurred to me that we can’t be agents of healing in people’s lives unless we’re ready to bear their wounds for them and from them. Looking back, I wonder why it took me so long, how someone who purports to follow Jesus wouldn’t have understood this.

The kingdom of God knows nothing of “balance.” It’s as balanced as, say, a teeter-totter with a gnat on one side and a hippo with, say, a grand piano on the other. No, wait; that’s misleading. The gnat has to move. It’s a teeter-totter with nothing on one end, and a hippo, grand piano, and also a gnat, because I just moved the gnat over there. In the economy of the kingdom of God, we can’t even afford the gnat. The kingdom is not “balanced,” it doesn’t operate via our “common sense,” and you can’t possibly, try as you might, “take it too far.” Being a citizen of that kingdom, then, means operating in that whole new economy, and grace—unfair, imbalanced grace—is the currency.

Looking back on it now, it seems more than strange for a sociologist to be leading a prayer meeting with a bunch of prostitutes in a diner in Honolulu at 3:30 in the morning. But then it just felt like the right thing to do. I prayed for Agnes. I prayed for her salvation. I prayed that her life would be changed and that God would be good to her. When I finished, Harry leaned over the counter and with a trace of hostility in his voice, he said, “Hey! You never told me you were a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to?” In one of those moments when just the right words came, I answered, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning.” Harry waited a moment and then almost sneered as he answered, “No you don’t. There’s no church like that. If there was, I’d join it. I’d join a church like that!”

The most puzzling thing: How is it even possible that someone could go from “You’re my sworn enemy; you’re not welcome here,” to “I want you to raise my children”? As I said, I’m still stunned. How does a heart change like that? The only thing I can think is he saw love. He knew we loved his people. I don’t know what else does that.

We can play pretend and try to set up an aquarium-type existence, devoid of interaction with anything or anyone who might challenge or upset us, but that’s not the world Jesus came to save.

When you’re humble, you’re not constantly thinking, How do I look? or Am I a success? or What do they think of me? It’s just not on your radar screen. When self-interested thoughts do cross your mind, you’re able to recognize them for what they are, in most cases: downright silly.

So let’s review: Choosing to be unoffendable means choosing to be humble. Not only that, the practice teaches humility. Once you’ve decided you can’t control other people; once you’ve reconciled yourself to the fact that the world, and its people, are broken; once you’ve realized your own moral failure before God; once you’ve abandoned the idea that your significance comes from anything other than God, you’re growing in humility, and that’s exactly where God wants us all. It’s contrary to seemingly everything in our culture, but the more we divest ourselves of ourselves, the better our lives get. Jesus told us as much. He said if we’d give up our lives, for His sake, we’d find real life. When we surrender our perceived “rights,” when we let go of our attempts to manipulate, we find—surprise!—joy. I’ve seen it happen in my own life, in little bits. I’m still learning. But I’m so glad someone told me to choose to be unoffendable, because something clicked in my understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. It turns out that life is not only more joy-filled for me but more attractive to others. I have to die to myself. What I’m finding is it doesn’t happen all at once, and it’s simultaneously simple to understand and arduous to actually do. But little by little, I think I’m seeing what God is up to. He wants to be in control. And you know what? I want Him to be. This hasn’t always been the case. I think I can trust Him. I don’t need to control things anymore. There’s so muc...

Why am I so stressed? Why do I need to pretend I can control people? Why do I need to make myself “significant”? Why do I think I need to assess other people spiritually? Why am I always trying to assess myself spiritually? Why do I need to defend myself? God is my Defender. He’s in control. And no, I don’t know where I’m going, but I know He loves me.