KneEmail - a devotional by Mike Benson associated with Forthright Magazine
Affair
A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN began seeing a marriage counselor...
Her walk, her dress, her smile were real attention-getters. She was extremely attractive. "I'm falling in love with a man in my office," she said. "We haven't had sexual relations, but I'm falling in love with him." What did the object of her desire look like? "Oh," she said, "if you met him you would think him the homeliest, most unattractive man you've ever seen. Truthfully, most would say he was ugly. You would never pick him out as someone I'd be attracted to." Why, then? "Well," she replied, "my husband is so cold, so hard, so indifferent, dogmatic, arrogant. He refuses to communicate with me or try to understand me. I've reached out to him, and done everything I know to do, but he is beyond reach as far as I'm concerned." What about the gentleman at the office? Her eyes lit up immediately. "He doesn't imagine that I'm even interested in him because he is so ordinary. But he's sensitive and warm, he listens to me, encourages me, and is genuinely interested in how I feel. I'm afraid of what I'm flirting with. I know it is sin, but I'm just so hungry for understanding and kindness and communication."
THOUGHTS: Do you know why most affairs take place? It is so simple. Most affairs happen because people believe they can receive from another person that which they are not receiving from their mate. A man strays because he believes somehow that he will find in this other one what he is not finding at home with his wife. Often it is sexual fulfillment. A wife strays because she hopes that another man will provide for here what her husband will not. Often it is affection (Ed Young).
KneEmail: "Now concerning the things about which you wrote. It is good for a man not to touch a woman. But because of immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does" (1 Cor. 7:1-4).