Marbled Desires
Gideon replied, "Those were my brothers, the sons of my own mother. As surely as the LORD lives, if you had spared their lives, I would not kill you." Judges 8:19 (NIV)
When the truth is in the dark, under the surface, some of it sprays out when we explode. There is a lot of background on Gideon leading up to this point in his story, but only in this exhausted and enraged state does this information about his brothers come out.
Marbled desires.
Gideon struggled to get into motion, but by this point he is utterly bent on destroying the Midianites. His rage spills over on any who stand in his way. Yet this singular drive is only on the surface, inside he has many driving forces which have temporarily united to fight the Midianites. His desires to obey God and defend his countrymen for a brief moment want the same action as his vengeful bitterness. But the stage is set: Gideon is stretched, excited, hopeful, exhausted, angry, and bitter. In this storm of victory and violence, angry words bring fragments from the depths of Gideon. Revenge from the distant past--nursed in dark thoughts--shows its strength.
How often do we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt that our motives are pure? What darker desires wind through our best ones?