DECEMBER 16, 2025

 “It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” 

― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

AMOS 7-9

I was neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, "Go prophesy to my people Israel."(7:14-16)

REVELATION 7

17For the Lamb at the center of the throne

will be their shepherd;

‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’^b

‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’^c 

JOURNAL 

The longer I sit with Scripture, the more I realize how much of my life has been shaped by self-protection. I didn’t always call it that. I thought I was being careful, wise, realistic. But underneath it all was a quiet effort to avoid rejection and disappointment. I learned how to keep parts of myself guarded, how to stay engaged without being fully exposed. Over time, that way of living felt normal. But the truth is, a life spent protecting myself instead of loving courageously is a life slowly drained of God.

That’s why Amos hits so close to home. God isn’t speaking to people who stopped showing up. He’s speaking to people who were doing all the right things while keeping their hearts at a safe distance. “I hate, I despise your religious feasts… Away with the noise of your songs” (Amos 5:21–23). It’s jarring. Their worship was busy and loud, but it wasn’t surrendered. I see how easily I’ve done the same thing, using good actions and even faith itself as a way to stay in control rather than to trust.

Self-protection is sneaky. It dresses itself up as responsibility or maturity. It convinces me that loving carefully is better than loving fully. But protection without love is just fear with better language. It keeps relationships shallow. It limits obedience to what feels safe. It avoids risk, even when risk is where real love lives.

Revelation pulls me out of that mindset. The worship in heaven isn’t about comfort or safety, it’s about sacrifice. “You are worthy… because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased people for God” (Revelation 5:9–10). Jesus didn’t protect Himself from rejection or pain. He walked straight into it. That reality confronts me. Love that refuses to suffer isn’t love. It’s control.

That’s why Christmas matters so much. God didn’t come into the world guarded or cautious. He came vulnerable. No armor. No backup plan. Just love, offered fully. If my faith doesn’t move me toward that same posture, then I’ve turned it into something safe and manageable, instead of something alive.

13“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,

“when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman

and the planter by the one treading grapes.

New wine will drip from the mountains

and flow from all the hills,

14and I will bring my people Israel back from exile.^f

AMOS 9:14-14