Why do I care about these minor prophets, anyway?

I've been reading the minor prophets lately -- see posts labeled "Reading Joel," "The prophetic turn" (Micah), "Zephaniah," and "Nahum" below -- so my loyal reader(s) might be asking, why does this reading matter to me?  The short answer is that I began reading them because I had never really read them, and I felt my Biblical knowledge was lacking.  Instead of knowledge, though, I have discovered in these books so far the fierceness of God's love.  Nahum begins by stressing that God is a jealous God, and all of the prophets I have read so far demonstrate that fact -- not that God is swayed by the emotion of human jealousy, but that he fiercely loves his people and desires to keep them from other gods and idols that only add to human misery and keep them away from him.  Does human nature change?  Probably -- over time we have become less attuned to God than we were in the past.  We have idols still, and those idols hold more sway than ever before.  However, God does not change.  The Old Testament God who fiercely desires his people to turn to him is the same God who sent Jesus to us at Christmas, and the same God who Jesus preached loves his people like a shepherd loves his flock.  I believe it is as true as true can be that God loves his people and desires to save them from themselves and their enemies.  This truth is expressed in the prophets as much as anywhere else in the Bible -- the gloom and doom of the prophecy comes from that love.  God has a righteous anger toward his enemies -- those who deny his truth and seek out something other than him to satisfy their deepest needs.  That anger, again, is not a human emotion but a reflection of God's fierce love.  So that's what I'm learning in reading these prophets for the first time.  I'm sure I will learn more as I go through them.