GIVE UP MY RIGHT TO ANGER, YOU SAY?

Yep. Just give it a try. You may find that refusing to take offense makes you flame-retardant.  Makes you better able to douse fires of anger and resentment before they consume you. Better able to forgive and move on in freedom. Better able to love.

Author Brant Hansen says as much. Last week I finished his book Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better. Before I reached the last chapter, I’d decided to write “BE UNOFFENDABLE” on my hand every day. With a Sharpie.

Please, get this book. It’s controversial, but once you get over being offended, the concepts won’t be. He offers no easy prescription, but instead gets at the guts of even our most intense challenges and pain, the anger they can produce, and a key mindset to adopt when contending with offenses from trivial to life-altering. Even and especially when our anger feels so justified. 

To whet your appetite, here are a few of Brent’s many takeaways:

• “Yes, we will get angry; we’re human. But then we have to get rid of it.”

• “Anger sweeps over us and tells us we’re being denied something. . . but an emotion is just an emotion. It’s not critical thinking . . . we have to question it.”

• “The thing that you think makes your anger righteous is the very thing you are called to forgive.”

• “Anger and action are two very different things, and confusing the two actually hurts our efforts to set things right.”

• “We can recognize injustice, grieve it, and act against it—but without rage, without malice, and without anger.”

• When we choose, ahead of time—before conversations, before meetings, before our day begins—to be unoffendable, we’re simply choosing humility.”

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

• In order for us to justify our right to anger, we have to confuse ourselves with God.”

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

• “Jesus, the one who made breakfast for His betrayers, wants us to love as He loves.”

Good stuff, hm? Also deep, difficult and liberating.  It’s just a taste of the wisdom in this important book. You’ll underline the whole thing.

Dallas Willard wrote that “anger is the most fundamental problem in human life.” Do you agree? How do you feel about being UNOFFENDABLE?

“In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry and do not give the devil a foothold.” Ephesians 4:26-27 NIV

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” Ephesians 4:31

“For man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” James 1:20

“But now you must rid yourself of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice . . .” Colossians 3:8

“A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.” Proverbs 29:11

*****

#lettinggo #trustingGod #Unoffendable #BrantHansen #forgiveness