You know there is a lot more to covetousness and this whole conversation than lust.
My brain's higher functions and filters are jacked up cause I'm pretty sick right now BUT....
I discovered a fascinating video that I shared with Jullianna a while back. I'm not going to imbed it but I am going to leave a link....
Esther Perel: The secret to desire in a long-term relationship | Video on TED.com
The general concept being that people want what they don't have. And if you are married then you have but, if you have healthy boundaries and sufficient respect for the other person as an "Other" or an "individual" then you can continue to want them because of how wholly different they are to you.
The problem occurs in long term relationships where you have two competing forces, security and adventure. Security wants things to be familiar, stable, routine, predictable, safe, because those are all good traits for bringing children into the world. Adventure wants to explore, wants to discover, wants to be excited, is fascinated with the exotic and the new, the novel, the different and it wants to do all of these things together. Adventure, this is what pulls us, and builds that bond or respect and admiration. In a relationship people need both, the safe and the new, belonging and exploring, assimilation and admiration, etc.
Men and women like to be able to admire people when they are in their element. People want to see from afar someone expressing themselves in their passion. Its why we watch sports and go to concerts and movies, we love seeing people do their thing.
This inspires us and fuels our creativity and imagination. We want to partake in a piece of that passion. I wish I could sing with her, surf with her, play volleyball with her, play video games with her, and so our imagination runs wild. Also, this still doesn't have anything to do with lust. Its more like professional respect than lust.
And that to me is where that warm fuzzy in my chest comes from.
But this warm fuzzy can still be coveting or just jealousy. Both of these things have such a negative stigma, but I think every good relationship has a degree of want still involved, leftovers from when the chase was hottest.
Lust, however, is a different dime altogether and, yes, we must flee lust and sexual immorality. But attraction? Nope. I don't see that in the Bible.
