"Do not desire her beauty in your heart, nor let her capture you with her eyelids"
A man can be captured by the look of a woman, how she acts, and the way she relates to him. She can make it seem as though she really wants him and that he is a desirable man. She can, through her listening and focused interest, propel him to a world of love, respect, and importance. It is this orientation that often fools men into sexual unfaithfulness.
One cannot be too careful. Notice what Solomon says: “Do not desire her beauty in your heart.” You win or lose the battle in your mind, not in your actions. Do you allow yourself to fantasize about this person? If you do, you are already losing the battle. There are significant battles you must win after this; but if you embrace the idea of sexual fantasies, then you are losing and have lost some significant battles.
Stop thinking about this. Think about something else. Think about your spouse, about your job, about hobbies that you love, about the Lord and your seeing Him face-to-face one day.
I hear about men being captured by the beauty of their secretary or a neighbor or a colleague instead of realizing that they are interested and tempted by this person’s beauty and steering a wide path around this person. Some think nothing of their mental flirtations and move right on ahead. Pay attention to your own temptations enough to realize that if you are interested in that person or they strike you a certain way, you should realize that they represent fire to you. Move away. Move back. Change the approach to that person. They cannot be treated like everybody else; something else is in play here. You must be careful.
Solomon describes accurately that no marital unfaithfulness begins with the unfaithfulness itself. It always begins as a mental fantasy first. There are lots of stages and phases before actual adultery is committed. It is even possible that some of you reading this right now are in some of the early phases of a flirtation or fantasy situation with someone who is not your spouse. You need to stop and go in the opposite direction. Break off contact with that person. If you have to seek a transfer or have them transferred, then do it. There is not a pot of gold at the end of this adultery game – just diseases, loneliness, depression, broken hearts, half the money, and mistrust.
Recognize that it begins with a desire of beauty in your soul and in your mind. It begins with the mind, and it needs to be beaten in your mind. While it promises life and excitement and love and joy, it separates you from life. It brings broken relationships and a series of lies and problems. Don't go down this road. Get off this path before you begin.
This proverb talks about beauty, but it does not mean just physical beauty. It is sexual beauty. It is the allure of a woman who knows how to treat a man. A woman of average physical beauty can transform herself into a woman of great beauty by learning the top ten needs of a man and developing the skills to meet them. A man is attracted to a woman who displays the skills and meets the needs of a man. It is a woman's clear ability to meet a man's needs that makes her beautiful. Often it is not her physical beauty but her ways of showing respect that is alluring, her willingness to listen to him, or her ability to "enjoy" his hobby or interests.
How does an adulteress capture a married man by her beauty? A number of studies have suggested that it is respect and listening as much as physical attractiveness and sex. Men, be careful that you do not begin to let another woman meet needs that your wife should be meeting. If you do, you have begun to move down the road to an affair.
Now on the other side, it is important that a man's wife know how to capture her husband's heart through her beauty – through her respect, listening, companionship, leadership, etc. (1 Peter 3:3,4) It is these areas that bring out the beautiful woman on the inside. She should also keep herself physically attractive and be willing to accommodate him sexually; but those are not the only, or in many cases, the primary ways to captivate him with your beauty.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz