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

 

Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better by Brant Hansen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my first Brant Hansen book, but I'm sure is will not be my last. He makes an argument that Christians should never be offended because of what Christ has done for us. I recommend this book for all believers in Christ. It will challenge you to live a life that honors our Lord. Even though I share many quotes from the book, you really need to read it for yourself. Enjoy the quotes below and allow the Holy Spirit to use them to help you be unoffendable.

To all those who want grace for themselves but struggle to extend it to others. Wait: that’s everybody. ~Brant Hansen

Anger is the most fundamental problem in human life. ~Dallas Willard

The thing that you think makes your anger “righteous” is the very thing you are called to forgive. Grace isn’t for the deserving. Forgiving means surrendering your claim to resentment and letting go of anger. ~Brant Hansen

In the Bible’s “wisdom literature,” angers always - not sometimes, always - associated with foolishness, not wisdom. The writer recognized that, yes, anger may visit us, but when it finds a residence, it's “in the lap of fools” (Eccl. 7:9). ~Brant Hansen

Thinking we're entitled to keep anger in our laps - whether toward the sin of a political figure, a news network, your dumb neighbor, you're lying spouse, you deceased father, whomever - is perfectly natural, and perfectly foolish. Make no mistake. Foolishness destroys. ~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. ~Brant Hansen

Dan Kahan, a Yale law professor, led a study that found that our passions and biases undermine even basic reasoning. The study show that people who are normally very adept at math are suddenly unable to solve a problem when the obvious answer conflicts with their political beliefs. And it's not as if the “smartest” people were able to do better at solving the problems. In fact, the researchers felt that the better the people were at math, the more apt they were to try to avoid the actual answer. (This applied to both liberals and conservatives, by the way.) Instead of changing our beliefs to match reality, we often just rearrange reality, in our heads, to match what we want. ~Brant Hansen

We simply can't trust ourselves in our judgments of others. We don't know what they're really thinking, or their background, or what really motivated whatever they did. And since we don't know, let's choose ahead of time: we're just not going to get offended by people. ~Brant Hansen

One man may be so placed that his anger sheds the blood of thousands, and another so placed that however angry he gets he will only be laughed at. But the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both. Each has done something to himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage next time he's tempted, and will make the rage worse when he does fall into it. Each of them, if he seriously returns to God, can have that twist in the central man straightened out again: each is, in the long run, doomed if you will not. The bigness or smallness of the thing, seen from the outside, is not what really matters. ~C.S. Lewis

So, what if - just dreaming out loud here - Christians were known as the people you couldn't offend? ~Brant Hansen

Yes, the world is broken. But don't be offended by it. Instead, thank God that He's intervened in it, and He's going to restore it to everything it was meant to be. His Kingdom is breaking through, bit by bit. Recognize it and wonder at it. ~Brant Hansen

But grace has no borders. Love breaks through, and - just as Jesus said of the church - the gates of hell will not prevail against it. ~Brant Hansen

We're told, in Psalm 46:10, to “be still,” or to stop “stop striving” and know that He is God. Some people are familiar with this verse but not the larger context, which is that of someone looking over the remains of a battlefield. The original Hebrew is suggestive of stopping the fight, letting go, and relaxing. God wants us to drop our arms. No more defensiveness. No more taking things personally. He'll handle it. Really. Trust Him. Rest. Quit thinking it's up to you to police people and that God needs you to “take a stand.” God “needs” nothing. 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. It's all so exhausting. ~Brant Hansen

We have nothing to prove, and when we really believe that, will hardly be quick to anger. ~Brant Hansen

Perhaps I'm wrong on this, but I doubt people will love God more because of my list of moral accomplishments. They're more likely to be annoyed. ~Brant Hansen

Refusing to be offended by others is a powerful door - opener to actual relationships. ~Brant Hansen

I used to think that to be Christ like meant to be alienated and put off by the sin off others. But it's quite the opposite. Refusing to be alienated and put off by the sin of others is what allows me to be Christlike. ~Brant Hansen

I used to read, and 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. The 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. ~Brant Hansen

Christians do not condone unbiblical living; we redeem it. ~ Mike Yaconelli

Love people where they are, and love them boldly. And if you really want to go crazy, them too. ~Brant Hansen

In the book “Messy Spirituality,” Yaconelli told a story about a small group of American soldiers during World War 2 who sought out a burial site for one of their fallen friends. They were pulling out the next day and were hoping to bury him in a fenced churchyard cemetery nearby. As the sun was setting, they approached the house next to the church and knocked on the door. The priest answered. They asked him if they could bury their friend in the cemetery. “I'm sorry,” he replied, “but that's only for members of our church.” The priest went on to tell the soldiers they could, if they chose, bury their comrade near the cemetery but on the other side of the fence. They were saddened but had few options, so that's what they did. The next day, they wanted to visit their fellow soldier’s grave site one last time before moving on. When they came to the churchyard, they were shocked: they couldn't find his grave. It simply wasn't there. One of them went to the Parsonage door and knocked. “What happened to the grave we dug?” one soldier asked when the priest answered. “It's not there. We did it last night, and it's not there.” “It's still there.” The soldier was baffled. “You see, last night, I couldn't sleep,” the priest confessed “all I could think about was that I’d told you, that you couldn't bury your friend inside our fence. I regretted that. So, last night, I got up - and I moved the fence.”

My goal with relationships is no longer to try to change people. Is to introduce people to a God who is already reaching toward them, right where they are. This changes everything. It means everyone is welcome, and not just theoretically, but really: everyone - no matter what their political or religious beliefs - is welcome in my home, at my table. I happen to be a pro- life, limited- government Jesus-follower. So, you're an atheist and a socialist who's pro-choice and thinks Jesus is for losers? Fascinating! Say, how would you like your toast? Tell me more about your thoughts about Jesus and losers . . . 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. ~Brant Hansen

Don't condemn the culture; redeem it. ~Brant Hansen

Wait: We're supposed to surrender the idea that we know others motivations. ~Brant Hansen

So how do I access the relative spiritual temperature of these people? How do I determine where they stand with God? Answer: I don't. ~Brant Hansen

Let’s dispense with one idea at the very start of this chapter: that anger and action are synonymous. 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. ~Brant Hansen

Anger and action are two very different things, confusing the two actually hurts our efforts to set things right. ~Brant Hansen

Indeed, we are to be motivated by something very different: love, in obedience born of love. ~Brant Hansen

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

You can recognize injustice, stand up to it, even sacrifice your life fighting. And you can do it without anger. In fact, you'll do it better. You won't be remembered as angry, but as convicted of what's right, and loving to the very end. This kind of love leaves an impression on one's enemies that anger simply never will. ~Brant Hansen

That Monday I went home with a heavy heart. I was weighed down by a terrible sense of guilt, remembering that on two of the three occasions I had allowed myself to become angry and indigent. I had spoken hastily and resentfully. Yet I knew that this was no way to solve a problem. “You must not harbor anger,” I admonish myself. “You must be willing to suffer the anger of the opponent, and yet not return anger.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

For those who ask, “but how can we fight injustice without anger?” King's response is simple: Be motivated by love. Love for victims, love for bystanders, even love for our enemies themselves.

We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies I want you to love our enemies. Be good to them. Love them and let them know that you love them. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jesus will not accept the common distinction between righteous indignation and unjustifiable anger. The disciple must be entirely innocent of anger, because anger is an offence against both God and his neighbor. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian

Naturally, if you love people, you're going to worry about them. But do you know where constant worry comes from? It's rooted in an arrogance that assumes, I know the way my life has to go, and God's not getting it right. Real humility means to relax. Real humility means to laugh at yourself. Real humility means to be self-critical. ~Timothy Keller

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

Hell . . . begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it. . . . Ye can repent, and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever, like a machine. ~C.S. Lewis

There's only one way to not be threatened by anything, and that’s if you have nothing to lose. And this is where the choosing- to-be-unoffendable business really becomes not only possible but also completely cnsonant with the teachings and life of Jesus. Just making the choice, and being mindful each day that “I'm not going to let people offend me,” is very helpful, and it will make life better. ~Brant Hansen

We say “I trust Jesus,” or “Trust in the Lord, and all that stuff.” But here's where the words actually mean something: What if . . . the worst happens? Do you still trust Him? ~Brant Hansen

Whether or not you currently feel that God is around doesn't alter reality. ~Brant Hansen

Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9 ), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion that is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being like, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last “trick,” whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school. “But how?” we ask. Then the voice says, “they have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” There they are. There we are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life’s tribulations, but through it all clung to faith. My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace. ~Brennan Manning

God still loves us. He has not abandoned us. Every hope we've ever had - that someone would find value in us, would think we were worthy of love, would find us enjoyable and attractive and pleasing and worthwhile - is met in Him. God Himself loves us! His love trump's everything. And nothing, Paul wrote in Romans, can separate us from that love. Nothing. ~Brant Hansen

What we believe isn't what we say we believe; it's what we do. ~Brant Hansen

But the King of kings wants you so badly that He'd give up his only Son to be with you. He not only allows it, but desires that you and I - lowly us! - talk to Him often, whenever we want. He's not asking us to try harder, but to trust that the work is already done to bring us into His family. He wants us to spend eternity - His eternity - with us. ~Brant Hansen

Jesus, the one who made breakfast for His betrayers, wants us to love as He loves. ~Brant Hansen

Without love, I'm just a bunch of noise. And even when well - intentioned, my arguments are abstractions. People have heard so many words. They want to see the love of God. We quote Scripture, saying, “God is love,” and “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 John 4:8; 1 Peter 4:8 ), but if we don't demonstrate this, our words are just more useless racket. ~Brant Hansen

Ideally, however, the church itself is not made up of natural “friends.” It is made up of natural enemies. What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs, or anything of the sort. Christians come together, not because they form a natural collection, but because they have been saved by Jesus Christ and owe Him a common allegiance. In the light of this common allegiance, in light of the fact that they have all been loved by Jesus Himself, they commit themselves to doing what He says - and He commands them to love one another. In this light, they are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus sake. ~D.A, Carson

Since anger has value, giving it up requires a sacrifice. And, as we've explored, it's one that's simply not optional for the follower of Jesus. The cross simultaneously stands as a constant reminder of His willingness to “pay the bill” and as an indictment on us when we are unwilling to do the same for others. ~Brant Hansen

It doesn't matter if I feel stupid. I just want to love people for once. ~Brant Hansen

It makes sense that people who follow the Man of Sorrows, a man who was “acquainted with grief,” are also acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3 ). We don't run away from it. We run toward it. And we run toward it knowing full well that people might 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. ~Brant Hansen

Choosing to be unoffendable out of love for others is ministry. And real ministry forces us to abandon our relentless search for approval from others. That frees us to love . . . beautifully and recklessly. ~Brant Hansen

And that's just it: it's always grace that changes hearts. Rules are wonderful. I'm a rules guy. Rules bring wisdom into our lives. They help us live better. They spare us from pain. But rules don't change anyone's heart, ever. Grace does. ~Brant Hansen

We can play pretend and try to sit 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. ~Brant Hansen

Henry Nouwen was a priest. He also had plenty of what the culture considers “significant”: he was a brilliant writer and a professor at both Yale and Harvard. As he lived his life, he saw the struggle between operating by the values of the world and the values of the kingdom of God. He says, “More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire is to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn't be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.”

It takes a childlike humility to embrace the love of God, to realize how “unfair” it is, and then add, quickly, “but I'll take it!” ~Brant Hansen

If you're constantly being hurt, offended, or angered, you should honestly evaluate your inflated ego. ~Brant Hansen

The Bibe karma on the other hand, it's shockingly devoid of Awesome, Big Planner People. Instead, God continually chooses the least likely to be chosen, the broken and the humble. It’s clearly His modus operandi. ~Brant Hansen

I also can't help but think that if we just responded to things God places in front of us in our lives, and entrusted the visionary role to the Lord Himself, beautiful things could happen. It doesn't mean we don't need leaders; of course we do. But we need humble ones, leaders who don't need a spotlight, don't need approval, don't need attention. “Ant” leaders who prod us own and serve us in order to help free us to do what God puts in front of us . ~Brant Hansen

To even get near [humility], even for a moment, is like a drink of cold water to a man in a desert. Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call “humble” nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all. ~C.S. Lewis

When we choose, ahead of time - before conversations,  before meetings,  before our day begins - to be unoffendable, we’re simply choosing humility. ~Brant Hansen

You needn't be insecure in who you are - not because you're great, but because your security isn't found in who you are. ~Brant Hansen

But you know what's harder than living a life of forgiveness? Living a life of unforgiveness. ~Brant Hansen

We don't forgive people because they deserve it. We forgive because we didn't deserve it. We forgive because we've been forgiven. We forgive as an act of worship. God deserves it. ~Brant Hansen

There's nothing that can be done with anger that cannot be done better without it. ~Dallas Willard

We have to constantly be grateful for our own forgiveness. We start the day with it. We live the day with it. We end the day with it. It defines us. ~Brant Hansen

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