Numbers 25:1-5: in context

Israel is camped at Shittim, on the very threshold of the promised land, and there they fall. The men begin to have sexual relations with the women of Moab, who then invite them to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people eat and bow down to the gods of Moab. Israel yokes itself to Baal of Peor, and the LORD's anger burns against them. God commands severe judgment on the leaders, and a plague breaks out that kills thousands.

The progression in these verses is worth tracing, because it shows how compromise usually works. It did not begin with a decision to abandon God for Baal; it began with relationships, with the men of Israel drawn into intimacy with the women of Moab. That relational entanglement led to the next step, being invited to the sacrifices, and then to eating the sacrificial meals, and then to bowing down to the gods, until Israel had yoked itself to Baal. Idolatry came in through the door of relationship, one step at a time, each step seeming small. No one set out to worship Baal; they set out to be close to people whose loyalties lay elsewhere, and the worship followed. It is a sobering picture of how the heart is drawn away, not usually by a dramatic renunciation of God but by a gradual entanglement, close ties with what pulls in a different direction, that slowly reorders our loves. And the timing makes it worse: this happened at the very edge of the promise, after all God had done, undone at the threshold by a compromise that started small. The way to Baal ran through Moab's tents, and it began with a step that did not look like idolatry at all.

Where am I in a gradual entanglement that pulls my heart in a different direction, a small step that does not look like idolatry but leads there, one compromise at a time?