There are 24 steps to cheating on your wife

Which one are you on?

Sin is progressive.  When one cheats on a wife (for example), or does anything else rather extreme, it does not happen over night. It isn't just one step to walk into the wrong joint at night, or one step to point the browser in the wrong direction.  That's just the last step in a long series that were headed in the wrong direction.

    But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.
(James 1:14-15 ESV)

 King David, before he killed Uriah slept with Bathsheba, and before he did that he invited her over and before that he looked to see her in the evening, and before he went on his rooftop, and before that he made the decision to stay home when his army went out for war.  Imagine all that could have been avoided had David simply gone to battle with his men as was tradition. 

So pondering each and every one of our steps is important.  Each step is likely a step in the right or in the wrong direction. There is little if any neutral ground for the Saint.  Our every thought is a step; everything we say, and everything we do, no matter how inconsequential an action seems.  Habits don't need proactive, conscious thought to form. And the reason you delayed on delivering a major project, for instance, was not because you lazily procrastinated on it but because you proactively did lots of other little things that really were less important.

Prov. 14:15

The simple believes everything,

but the prudent gives thought to his steps.

Prov 4:26

Ponder the path of your feet;

then all your ways will be sure.

Prov 19:2

Desire without knowledge is not good,

and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.