For the past several years my family and I have been huge fans of Hansen.We listened to him faithfully when he was on the radio, and I still listen to him via podcast. So despite my initial skepticism at the thought of giving up my right to being angry, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. (His track record of honesty, humor and biblical knowledge made that easier for me to do!)
And in all honesty, this book was fantastic. Using stories from his own life (some of which made me laugh out loud), as well as illustrations and quotes from other authors, Hansen effectively puts forth his argument.
Using Scripture, from both the Old and New Testaments, we are shown what God has to say about anger, and who has the right to be angry (not us!) as well as how we are supposed to live our lives with gratitude, love and forgiveness, sharing God with those who may not know Him... and being blessed by the choice to live that way.
As an experiment, I decided to try being unoffendable. (By the way, it's amazing how much practice you get when you make a decision like that!) But it has actually been a pretty cool thing. Not that I have a bad temper or anything like that, but I make the choice each time that something that would normally bother me just doesn't have the power to do so. Mostly it's stupid stuff like other drivers on the road or things like that. But the other day my teenage daughter was in a "mood." She was cranky and just generally not nice to be around. Rather than play into it and argue with her (like I normally do) I just walked away and did something else. A couple hours later she came into the living room and sat next to me and apologized to me for being mean before. She knew I was reading this book, so I said to her, "Thanks for the apology, but don't worry about it. I'm unoffendable!" She smiled, put her head down on my shoulder and said,"I'm so glad you're my mom."
Thank you, Brant!
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