In this day and age, it seems that EVERYONE is offended by something. Recently in our state, they were offended by the Confederate Flag that was flying high above the State House. After several rallies and protests, the governor sought, and later succeeded, the removal of the flag.
If it’s not the flag that people are offended by, they are easily offended by other things. It seems that people feel they are entitled to be offended. As Brant Hansen points out in his book, we think we are entitled to our anger and resentment that go along with being offended. It is like we’ve got something on someone, and as if we have moral superiority over them when we are offended. However, you can choose not to be offended. That is not an easy concept to swallow, but it is a choice that we can make in the moment when we feel it rising up inside of us.
Ask yourself this. Is your anger, resentment, and bitterness pleasing to God? I realize there is a bible verse that people love to quote where it says not to sin in your anger. A lot of people don’t realize (I didn’t) that this often quoted scripture also goes on further down in the passage to say NOT to be angry or bitter. Take a look:
26 “Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, 27 nor give place to the devil.28 Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:26-32
What would our world look like today if we all chose to be unoffendable? What if we actually lived by the above bible verse? Now isn’t that something to consider?!
Being unoffended strikes at our pride and forces us to be humble. Being unoffendable also takes us from being the center of attention with our anger, our hatred, our resentment, our feelings of injustices, and our raging emotions, and it puts the focus on OTHERS! That is a hard one for us, isn’t it? We are all, whether we want to admit it or not, self focused and self absorbed. We don’t want to put others before ourselves, and yet, what if we DID just that? If we were to forfeit or deny our anger, and give up our “right” to be angry as if it does not even exist, and we FORGIVE and let go of our anger. Christ calls us to do just that. We are to love, offer mercy, and extend grace. Truthfully, how often do we do this when others have offended us?
Do we stop to put ourselves in other people’s shoes for just a minute? Take the flag situation I mentioned at the beginning of this post. People on both sides of the argument thought they were RIGHT! The ones that wanted the flag to remain said it was heritage and not hate. It is a part of our history, and yet the ones that had so much hatred toward the flag saw it as a sign of when their ancestors were in slavery. One side refused to see the other side’s point, though, and so they continued with their bitterness and anger. What if the side that said “Heritage, not hate” put themselves in the shoes of the black people saying “All I see is a symbol of slavery of my ancestors.” What if the blacks put themselves in the shoes of the white people and recognized that it was a part of our history and heritage instead of choosing to see it as a symbol of hatred? If we stop to consider where the other party is coming from, maybe … just maybe … it would make an impact on us and how we respond. Maybe then we could truly become unoffendable.
I’d like to challenge you on this, just as I feel I have been challenged by the words in Mr. Hansen’s book. I will not issue this challenge, though, without offering you the tools in his book. I have his brightly colored orange and white book in front of me so I can soak up all that he has to offer on truly being unoffendable. I’d like to equip you as well with the tools to fight against anger and, instead, be able to offer the love, mercy, and grace that we are called to extend to others.
Below is a giveaway for a $25.00 certificate from Family Christian. In just a few clicks, you’re entered to win. This certificate can be used to purchase the book, OR to purchase anything you desire at their store. They have so much to choose from, and I, personally, love shopping there!
I will be going through this book in more detail, and I intend to share it with my family. We all can benefit from being UNoffendable. Just as I talk of choosing joy a lot of times on this site, you can also choose to be unoffendable. Mr. Hansen will show you how, and I will share with you the knowledge I gained from his book, spread out in separate posts so you really “get it” and not just skim through the post.
Here’s to being UNoffendable!
And here’s your chance to enter a giveaway for a $25.00 certificate from Family Christian! A special thanks to Family Christian for this opportunity to partner with them as a blogger and to offer such awesome giveaways!
