Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better (updated with two new chapters)

by Brant Hansen

Forfeiting our right to anger makes us deny ourselves, and makes us others-centered. When we start living this way, it changes everything. Actually, it’s not even “forfeiting” a right, because the right doesn’t exist. We’re told to forgive, and that means anger has to go, whether we’ve decided our own anger is “righteous” or not.

But an emotion is just an emotion. It’s not critical thinking. Anger doesn’t pause. We have to stop, and we have to question it.

We humans are experts at casting ourselves as victims and rewriting narratives that put us in the center of injustices.

Anger will happen; we’re human. But we can’t keep it. Like Reverend King, we can recognize injustice, grieve it, and act against it—but without rage, without malice, and without anger.

The best soldiers don’t function out of anger. Anger does not enhance judgment. Yes, God is quite capable of being both just and angry, but if I’m on trial in front of a human judge, I’m sure hoping his reasoning is anger-free.

We have no idea what is in someone else’s heart. We don’t know the backstory. We don’t know what’s happening in his mind. We don’t know how her brain works. We think we do, sure, but we don’t. So let’s review: 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.

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.

Quit trying to parent the whole world. Quit offering advice when exactly zero people asked for it. Quit being shocked when people don’t share your morality. Quit serving as judge and jury, in your own mind, of that person who just cut you off in traffic. Quit thinking you need to “discern” what others’ motives are. And quit rehearsing in your mind what that other person did to you.

You can’t join Alcoholics Anonymous and pretend you’ve got everything under control. When you join, you’re saying, “I can’t pretend anymore,” and you’re joining with people who are right there with you. There’s something wonderful about that.

If I get to determine whether my anger is righteous or not, I’m in trouble. So are you. The reason: we can’t trust ourselves.

You’re not going to like this, but face it for what it is, and say it out loud: “That person I’m angry with? I’m worse.”

doubt people will love God more because of my list of moral accomplishments.

Refusing to be offended by others is a powerful door-opener to actual relationships. I don’t expect people who aren’t believers to act like followers of Jesus. Why should they? How about I give up the sanctimonious act and just love them, without thinking I need to change their moral behavior?

Refusing to be alienated and put off by the sin of others is what allows me to be Christlike.

I used to read, in Matthew 16, where Jesus was talking about the “gates of hell” coming against the church and how they would not prevail against it, and I’d think, That’s great! We can stand up to the worst attacks. But that doesn’t make any sense. Gates don’t attack. I’m kind of a military history nerd, and I still missed this. This reference isn’t defensive at all. It’s about being on offense. What it actually sounds like is this: Jesus is sending His followers out to love others, and they can go anywhere, even through the gates of hell, to do it.

My goal with relationships is no longer to try to change people. It’s to introduce people to a God who is already reaching toward them, right where they are.

Welcoming people into our lives isn’t “glossing over important issues.” Refusing to be angry about others’ views isn’t conflict avoidance or happy-talk. It’s the very nature of serving people. I don’t pretend the differences aren’t there; I just appreciate that God has a different timetable with everyone.

don’t control anyone, because that’s God’s job. That’s His deal. I can just enjoy and love people.

don’t know where people really stand with God.

You can quit trying to assess everyone; quit pretending you know where people stand; quit fooling yourself into thinking you know what others are thinking, what’s in their hearts. Let’s be humble and admit what we don’t know. What we do know is this simple truth: everyone, pastors and prostitutes, needs more Jesus.

Often, we confuse the two, thinking that if we’re not angry about an unjust situation, we’re simply accepting it. That’s completely false.

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.)

Zebras have very real threats but don’t get ulcers because that stress-response episode is here and gone in seconds. But we humans—we highly intelligent, top-of-the-food-chain, we-can-put-one-of-us-on-the-moon humans—invent things to make us feel threatened. Antelopes don’t do that. They don’t lie awake at night, wondering if another antelope is going to make them transfer to another location or maybe fire them. That’s us. We do that. An antelope doesn’t lose sleep worrying it might have run up credit-card charges that it can’t pay off. We do.

The most physically insecure people on the planet, and therefore the people most easily threatened regarding their looks . . . are supermodels. So what have we learned from this? If your security is based on your looks—or property or achievement, for that matter—you’re in for a life of stress, because whatever it is you think you need, once you get it—if you ever get it—there’s no guarantee you won’t lose it.

THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY TO NOT BE THREATENED BY ANYTHING, AND that’s if you have nothing to lose.