Where does inappropriate intimacy begin with someone who is not your spouse? What are your intentions concerning persons that you may find attractive, inviting or feel an emotional connection with? There are any number of opportunities out there to be unfaithful to your Lord, your spouse and yourself through wrongly intentioned relational connections. Here are six areas to be aware of:

1.Phone calls and text messages. How much time do you spend on the phone with this opposite sex (friend) and how intimate is your conversation? Is your spouse aware of these conversations? Are you open with your spouse about these calls/texts and the content of them if they are necessary? Have you ever crossed a line or desired to cross a line in any of these conversations?

2. One-on-one, private and face-to-face conversations. Do you attempt to manipulate your schedule to connect with someone of the opposite sex that you desire to be around or find yourself attracted to? Do one-on-one conversations excite you, increase your heart rate or increase your thoughts about this person?

3. Spiritually intimate connections. Are you looking for ways in which you can connect spiritually with this person? Do you find yourself desiring to pray with them more  than your spouse? If you have occasion to pray with this person, how intimate are those times of prayer. In other words, are you praying about things that you should not even be discussing with one another?

4. Fantasizing about this person. Are you thinking about this person to the point of fantasizing about time with them or an ongoing relationship with them? Do you have dreams about this person? Are you allowing your mind to take you to inappropriate places with this person?

5. Do you dress in the morning considering the possibility of a connection with this person? If you are dressing with this person in mind, once again, you have crossed a line and your motives are suspect. You are actually fantasizing about how you can be an attractant to wrong desires.

6. Social media “stalking.”  Are you closely following the social media presence of someone, watching for pictures or information that you can use for conversation?  Accessing someone’s social media sites in order to discover more information for your own arsenal of personal details is stalking.

Why do you want to attract this person to yourself? What is the need in your life that is crying out for help through broken and inappropriate connections? What is missing in your relationship with Jesus that keeps you longing after an inappropriate connection? What is missing in your marriage that pushes you toward openness with someone other than your spouse? Please consider the following Scriptures: Proverbs 4: 20-27; 5: 15 – 23; and 6: 20 – 29.