Sometimes we can lie to ourselves and believe flirting is harmless, whether we are flirting with people, things, or even the idea of things. There is a misconception that flirting is harmless when it is actually detrimental to your heart and possibly someone else’s. When it comes to the heart, I am not solely speaking of the emotions that arise due to dopamine, but it impacts the condition of your heart, weakens your integrity and character. It changes what you allow yourself to entertain, what you become comfortable thinking about, and eventually what you are willing to act on. Something can begin as an innocent thought, a conversation, a curiosity, or an idea, but when you continue to entertain it, you begin giving it room to grow. Some people start things and flirt with ideas that may cause them to stumble down the line and I’m not speaking to trivial things like a business venture, but even as detrimental as a family, a marriage, a child, or a person. We flirt with the idea that if I leave this thing such as my marriage, we flirt with the idea that the grass will suddenly become greener and all of your problems disappear because it was the other person holding you back. We begin imagining a life where everything is easier, everything is better, and everything we desire is waiting for us on the other side of the decision. We can become so consumed with the possibility of something different that we stop being honest about what our decisions may actually cost us. Sometimes the problem is not necessarily that we want something else. Sometimes the problem is that we have allowed ourselves to become fascinated with the idea of something else. We begin to entertain what life could look like if we made a different decision without considering the consequences attached to that decision. We can romanticize leaving while ignoring what it took to build what we already have. We can convince ourselves that our current circumstances are the only thing standing between us and happiness, when sometimes God is asking us to examine our own hearts, our own character, our own responsibility, and our own willingness to endure.

We flirt with people as if they are not gifts handcrafted by God, but objects to be obtained due to their individual beauty and ultimately your lust. Unbeknownst to you, this is a person with feelings, a heart, and emotions, and you do not know what part of someone’s life you are entering into to treat them carelessly because it was just something to do. You do not know what someone has prayed through, cried through, survived, or healed from before you ever encountered them. You do not know what your attention may mean to someone who has been longing to feel seen, wanted, or loved. What may feel like harmless attention to you could create an attachment in someone else that they have to spend months or even years trying to break. We flirt with the idea that if I leave my children and never return that you would be satisfied and life wouldn’t be so hard leaving a mother or a father to mend broken hearts. We can convince ourselves that our absence will somehow make life easier, when there are children who are left trying to understand why someone they love chose not to show up. We can become so focused on what we want to escape that we forget there are people connected to our decisions who never asked to carry the consequences of them.

What we think is harmless is a direct reflection of how we view ourselves and a direct reflection of our relationship with God. What we entertain matters because what we repeatedly entertain begins to shape us. The things we allow ourselves to flirt with can reveal what we are willing to compromise, what we are willing to justify, and where we have stopped being intentional with our hearts. When we flirt, we set our gaze on the target, our heart begins to become invested subconsciously, and then eventually our feet and our actions follow. What we begin to flirt with becomes a habit. What becomes a habit eventually becomes a part of our character. This is why we cannot always wait until something becomes an action before we take it seriously. Sometimes we have to address the gaze before we ever have to address the behavior. We have to be honest about what we are looking at, what we are thinking about, what we are entertaining, and what we are allowing ourselves to desire. Flirting without first being mindful of what it could cost you or someone else is dangerous. Flirting allows you to act carelessly, take no responsibility, and hide under the guise of innocence. We can say, “It was nothing,” because we never called it anything. We can say, “I never meant for it to go that far,” even though we continued to entertain it long after we recognized where it could lead. We can convince ourselves that because we did not physically cross a line, we did not cross a line at all. But there are things we can begin in our hearts long before they ever become visible in our actions. We should be people that are intentional. That what we start, we finish. The family, the marriage, raising children, the job assignments, the business ventures, and the communities we are connected to. There should be a level of integrity attached to the things God has entrusted to us. We should not constantly be looking for the next thing simply because the current thing has become difficult. We should not treat people, commitments, responsibilities, or relationships as disposable simply because something else has caught our attention.

Intentionality requires us to understand that everything we touch has a cost. Every decision has consequences, and every person we encounter is carrying a heart that God created. We have to become people who are mindful of what we are cultivating, because eventually we will have to live with what we allowed to grow. Maybe the question is not simply, “Is this harmless?” Maybe the better question is, “Where is this taking my heart?”

Matthew 6:21 NLT Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.