Brant Hansen Is Trying to Kill Me, or Maybe Not

I like reading. Not the way my wife likes reading—you know, the kind where the house could catch fire and she’ll deal with it after she finishes the chapter.

I read for effect. I want a book to change me, to make me see the world differently or challenge the way I live. That’s why Brant Hansen’s Unoffendable caught my attention.

Great title. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure “unoffendable” was a real word. More importantly, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to be.

After all, I’m a disciple of Jesus Christ. Shouldn’t there be things I’m supposed to be angry about? Other people get offended over trivial things, but my anger? Surely mine is righteous.

This is where Brant Hansen tries to kill me. Not literally—more like a surgeon with a scalpel.

He makes a simple but devastating distinction: God’s anger and human anger are not the same. Scripture repeatedly shows God’s anger accomplishing justice, while human anger rarely produces anything good.

“But what about Ephesians 4:26? ‘In your anger do not sin.’ Doesn’t that prove anger itself isn’t sinful?”

It does—but only if we stop reading.

Paul immediately continues: “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”

Anger isn’t something to nurture. It’s something to release. That’s a problem for me.

I like my anger. It feels justified. But Hansen points to a truth I don’t enjoy hearing: righteous anger belongs to God, not me.

God can be trusted with anger. I cannot.

James writes, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”

Human anger doesn’t produce God’s righteousness.

That means I can wake up each morning already expecting people to disappoint me—and still choose to forgive.

Forgiveness is hard. Living in bitterness is hard too. Choose your hard.

I can also quit being surprised when people act like broken people. Quit expecting everyone to think like I think.

Quit assuming they’ll respond the way I would.

The truth is, I live in a broken world filled with broken people—and I’m one of them.

Hansen calls this “forgiveness practice”: forgiving people before they even offend you.

I hate forgiveness practice.

And then he makes it even worse.

Don’t just forgive. Bless them. Pray for them. Return kindness for evil.

That feels impossible.

I’d much rather judge people. Self-righteousness is strangely addictive.

Yet living unoffended offers incredible freedom.

I’m no longer dependent on everyone else getting life right.

I can look in the mirror and remember that I need grace just as much as anyone else.

And I can trust God to handle justice instead of appointing myself judge—a job I’m spectacularly unqualified for.

At this point someone usually asks, “But what about injustice? Aren’t there things we should be angry about?”

Hansen’s answer is surprising:

No.

There are plenty of things we should act on.

But anger isn’t the fuel God intends us to run on.

That’s especially challenging in a world built around outrage. Social media rewards anger with clicks, likes, and shares. It makes us feel like we’ve accomplished something when, in reality, we’ve often done little more than announce our frustration.

It’s easier to post than to serve.

Easier to criticize than to help.

Easier to be angry than to love.

History gives us better examples.

Think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Corrie ten Boom, or Elisabeth Elliot. Each experienced profound injustice. None allowed anger to become their defining response.

They acted. They loved. They forgave.

Letting go of anger doesn’t mean becoming passive. It means refusing to let anger control how we fight for what is right.

I can stand for truth while genuinely loving the people who oppose me.

That’s difficult.

But then again, so is following Jesus.

The more I grasp the grace God has shown me, the harder it becomes to withhold forgiveness from someone else.

And that’s really the point.

Brant Hansen isn’t trying to kill me.

He’s trying to help me stop waking up each morning looking for someone to disappoint me.

Instead, I can begin seeing people for who they really are: broken image-bearers deeply loved by their Creator.

That perspective changes everything.

What a strange freedom it is to stop worrying about what everyone thinks of me. If you don’t think much of me, that’s okay.

I still choose to love you.

Because that’s exactly what God did for me.

Paul called himself the worst of sinners, yet celebrated the overwhelming mercy of Christ. If God’s grace could reach someone like Paul—and someone like me—then surely it can reach the people who frustrate me most.

I started reading Unoffendable hoping for a meaningful book.

Instead, it pointed me back to the only Book that truly changes people.

The Bible tells the story of a God who had every right to judge sinful humanity, yet chose instead to rescue us through His Son.

God didn’t ignore injustice. He did something about it. Now He invites me to follow His example.

So each day I choose:

I will give my anger to the only One who can carry it perfectly.

I will remember that every person I meet—including myself—is broken and in desperate need of a Savior.

I will stop being shocked when broken people do broken things.

I will practice forgiveness until it becomes second nature.

I will speak truth without anger.

I will act where God has placed me instead of feeding my own self-righteousness.

Even if it feels like dying.

Because Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

Turns out Brant Hansen wasn’t trying to kill me after all.

He was simply reminding me what following Jesus looks like.