The “Other” 10 Second Rule
The following is a blog by Rob Parsons, a British pastor/teacher. I found his ideas both biblical and practical.
Over the years, I’ve talked with many men and women who have been involved in affairs. One of the most salutary things is to realize that with many of them, they didn’t intend to be unfaithful to their partners. They sometimes blurt out, “It just happened.” They will normally go on to talk about some innocent event in which they were involved (often a genuine desire to help the other person in some way), and then go on to say, “It suddenly got out of hand.”
When is the battle won or lost in the affair? Is it decided at the bedroom door? No. The battle is so often decided when somebody smiles at you across a room and you have ten seconds to decide whether you will walk those twenty feet or keep talking to the boring colleague next to you. There is, in so many affairs, a line that has to be crossed. The tragedy is that so often it is drawn very near the beginning of the relationship, but once it is crossed it is hard to go back.
I remember speaking with a man who was in the middle of an affair. He’d lost just about everything. He said: “Rob, she offered me a lift. The second I got in that car, it was as if it was all decided.”
Over the years, I’ve talked with many men and women who have been involved in affairs. One of the most salutary things is to realize that with many of them, they didn’t intend to be unfaithful to their partners. They sometimes blurt out, “It just happened.” They will normally go on to talk about some innocent event in which they were involved (often a genuine desire to help the other person in some way), and then go on to say, “It suddenly got out of hand.”
When is the battle won or lost in the affair? Is it decided at the bedroom door? No. The battle is so often decided when somebody smiles at you across a room and you have ten seconds to decide whether you will walk those twenty feet or keep talking to the boring colleague next to you. There is, in so many affairs, a line that has to be crossed. The tragedy is that so often it is drawn very near the beginning of the relationship, but once it is crossed it is hard to go back.
I remember speaking with a man who was in the middle of an affair. He’d lost just about everything. He said: “Rob, she offered me a lift. The second I got in that car, it was as if it was all decided.”
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