Husband: No, the right way of making decisions like this is to never revisit them.
Wife: I’d like to change what we call “the right way” of making decisions. Here is my proposal…
Husband: Even though this is something totally new, it incorporates one element of the way we used to make decisions, which I didn’t like back then. Besides, this would be very inconvenient.
Wife: But if doing things rightly in a way that saves our marriage is inconvenient, isn’t it worth a little inconvenience?

Husband: as you know, I like to hear your concerns and address them.

Wife: I’m so glad, because I have this list of concerns, based on our current situation.

Husband: I’ve reviewed your list, and note that we addressed some of these things 37 years ago and others 15 years ago. Since we said the correct things at those times, it would be out of order for me to reaffirm similar things again. Besides, if we talk about it again, I might get into trouble for saying the wrong thing this time.

Wife: Oh… well… I’d really still like to talk about….

Husband: [interrupting] I’m sorry, that discussion is out of order at this time.

Wife: Well… there’s this other issue that matters much to me. There is a wrong decision that we have made that threatens our marriage entirely. Here’s my report on that…

Husband: I see. Yes, that might have been the wrong decision, but we made it in the right way.

Wife: Well, can we revisit it?

Husband: No, the right way of making decisions like this is to never revisit them.

Wife: I’d like to change what we call “the right way” of making decisions. Here is my proposal…

Husband: Even though this is something totally new, it incorporates one element of the way we used to make decisions, which I didn’t like back then. Besides, this would be very inconvenient.

Wife: But if doing things rightly in a way that saves our marriage is inconvenient, isn’t it worth a little inconvenience?

Husband: If we talk about this more we’ll be late for lunch. This part of the discussion is over.

Wife: It is? Well, could we thank God and pray together?

Husband: If we do that, you might think that I was approving what we were thanking God and praying for.

Wife: Is that bad?

Husband: Well, if we approve things that God approves of, but the people that hate Him disapprove of them, we might offend those people, and then they wouldn’t like us enough to stop hating God.

Wife: But… isn’t it the point that we thank God and pray to Him because He is the One who makes people stop hating Him, not they themselves?

Husband: No. It makes it hard to get a hearing from them.

Wife: Are you really against thanking God and praying to Him?

Husband: uh… er… ok, let’s do it real quick.

[short prayer]

Husband: I’m glad we could have such an irenic conversation. I feel great about how good our marriage is.

Disclaimer: any apparent resemblance to recent ecclesiastical events is intentional, but the author is grateful for any discrepancies between the analogy and the reality. In fact, the author hopes that there are many, many more of these discrepancies than he has so far been able to identify.

James N Hakim is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America is pastor of Harvest PCA in Orange City, Iowa. This article appeared on his blog and used with permission.