51ÂÜÀò

 

Isaac Adams and Austin Suter join today’s episode to discuss the challenges and camaraderie they’ve experienced in their interracial friendship. They speak with Tim and Rick about the beginnings of their friendship and the importance of having an established relationship when the difficulties and disagreements hit, which inevitably occur. They discuss the relational elbow grease that is required for friendships to make it through the hard times, and some great insights are provided on how we can get better with disagreements in our own friendships. And Isaac wrote an article, “," which they reference in this episode.

Transcript

Rick Langer: Welcome to the Winsome Conviction Podcast. My name's Rick Langer. I'm a professor here at 51ÂÜÀò in the Biblical Studies and Theology Department, director of the Office of Faith and Learning. But one of my favorite jobs is being the co-host of the Winsome Conviction podcast with my good friend Tim Muehlhoff.

Tim Muehlhoff: Rick, it's great to be with you. Since the 1930s, Rick, we've shut down the entire university to do what we call the Torrey Bible Conference. I mean, imagine that since the 1930s.

Rick Langer: That's almost 100 years worth of Torrey Bible Conference.

Tim Muehlhoff: Which is amazing. And this past year, Winsome Conviction actually partnered with the organizers of the Torrey Bible Conference to bring in a speaker that we felt would be able to address the topics that we just feel like there's a lot of division about.

And so that speaker that we brought in was Isaac Adams. He is a husband, a father. He's author of a amazing book called Talking 51ÂÜÀò Race. Those of you who want to check it out, just go to christianity.com, type in Isaac Adams. And I had the privilege of doing an interview with him about the book, but I'd really-

Rick Langer: Is that christianitytoday.com?

Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah. And it was a great interview. It's a great book. He very creatively tackles the issue of race. And he's the founder of United We Pray, and he's also the lead pastor of Iron City Church in Birmingham, Alabama. But the really cool thing about Isaac coming, Rick was it was double bonus day because he brought with him his really good friend, Austin Suter.

Austin is the executive director and editor of United We Pray. He's a husband, father, seminary student at RTS, Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte. Austin is a member of Iron City Church in Birmingham, Alabama. And I've got to tell you, having both of them be with us was just such a treat. I mentioned to them before we hit record that they were one of the highest rated duos to come to the Torrey Bible Conference. But as ... Oh, go ahead.

Rick Langer: And one of the things that was really fun when we had them here, just having dinner with them. We got about 10 faculty members together with Isaac and Austin, just had a wonderful evening chatting and just kind of thinking about the challenges we face. A good time of prayer together and it's really sweet. So we're thrilled to have Isaac and Austin joining us here.

Tim Muehlhoff: And here's why we're asking him to be with us. So just consider these quick statistics, Rick. Since the 2016 presidential election, nearly a third of people report they have stopped talking to a friend or a family member due to political disagreements. Nearly two thirds of Americans say they stay quiet about their political beliefs due to the fear of offending coworkers or managers, maybe even resulting in losing their job.

Today we have a loneliness epidemic. It's often talked about as an epidemic. Some surveys reveal that around 60% of people in the US right now report feeling lonely on a regular basis. So this division that we're seeing in our country is affecting families, where we work and friendships. So what was really cool about having Isaac and Austin here is we learned a little bit about them, of course, working together with this great ministry, United We Pray, but they're also a little bit transparent that this friendship that they have forged wasn't always easy to do and that they've had to do work to make it thrive, both as Christians, both as people who have founded this great organization.

So when we heard that, we thought, well, man, let's get a little bit of the backstory on that. Let's learn how do you keep a friendship going even when there are some bumps along the road. So Isaac, Austin, that was our thinking of why we wanted to have both of you on this podcast was to hear a little bit about your friendship. So welcome, both of you.

Austin Suter: Great to be here.

Isaac Adams: Hey, really good to be here. Thank y'all for having us, and it was a blast being with y'all in LA. And yeah, we look forward to a continued partnership. But yeah, just good to be here and good to be talking with y'all.

Austin Suter: Guys, let me say this, just as an introductory encouragement, I left 51ÂÜÀò and I said to Isaac, "I would send my kids here." And I mean that to be a very high compliment.

Tim Muehlhoff: Well, Austin, we appreciate it and we will take your-

Rick Langer: Happy to take your tuition dollars. That's fine.

Isaac Adams: I think I might've responded and said, "I would definitely send my kids here for free."

Tim Muehlhoff: Hey, but listen, seriously, we love having both of you, but as we mentioned, people are struggling today to keep friendships going when it takes work to do. So we were wondering if you would tell us the backstory, how did you both get interested in talking about race in a time when it seems like a duck and cover issue for so many people?

Why did you decide to speak up? And tell us a little bit about your friendship and what's that like to have the race conversation as a friendship? Tell us how long you've been friends, how you met and all that kind of stuff.

Isaac Adams: People can't see it on these mics, but I feel like it's like you're looking at the couple and people are asking for the story and they're like, well, who wants to go first and correct them? Austin, why don't you take the first stab?

Austin Suter: All right.

Isaac Adams: Yeah, I'll add some commentary.

Austin Suter: So Isaac and I were both going to church in Washington, DC. I had been at the church for several years as a college student, and then I graduated and wanted to stay at the church. So I was working for a Christian nonprofit in the area. Ended up getting a job for a ministry based out of the church. And Isaac was also working for a ministry, a different ministry based out of the church.

And we were in this big shared communal office together. And honestly, first impressions weren't great, and it was just based on misunderstanding. And I would say on my end, an immature application of humor where I ... and I was way too familiar, way too quick. And both of us were kind of just turned off and not like, oh, I can't stand this person, but I don't think either of us was thinking this is a long-term life-changing friendship in the making.

Isaac Adams: Yeah, I think that's accurate. And I'm only laughing because I saw a meme the other day that was like, your best friends are the people you meet at first and don't like them. I think I said that to Austin, I was like, "Man, isn't that true?" But I think to the other questions y'all raised, this was a communal shared workspace. And as Austin and I got to know each other, and as we shared this space, things were happening outside the church. I mean, we were in the wake of Michael Brown, that happened.

Austin Suter: That happened while we were working together.

Isaac Adams: While we were working together. This is 2014. And we started talking about these things and it really wasn't ever like, hey, do you want to do ... Both young men in seminary. So just kind of growing up in ministry period. And it wasn't like, hey, we should do this official thing together. And that's been one of the sweet fruits of this is it was born at of friendship in that sense of we've been just talking about these things.

Austin Suter: And praying about them.

Isaac Adams: And praying about them over lunch, I think. We would just talk about them. And you're looking at an African-American and Austin's white and Austin's white and from rural, well, Austin has grown up overseas and has lived in different places, but spent a lot of time in rural Virginia. And I'm from Washington D City, so kind of up the street from the church we were working at.

So just two very different human beings who began talking and who began praying and began sending each other our sermons to each other like, hey, what do you think? Sending articles to each other. Hey, what do you think? And by God's grace, we were able to start doing that professionally together, which I'm sure we'll get to, but that's a high overview.

Tim Muehlhoff: I'm struck by that shared space. The Winsome Conviction projects only been around for four years, but what we're noticing via tribalism, there are no shared spaces anymore. There's no places to have lunch and discuss and talk about things. So that shared space was, you guys got a chance to see each other regularly, right?

Isaac Adams: Yeah. I mean nine to five, Monday to Friday.

Rick Langer: Shared space, whether you wanted it to be or not.

Isaac Adams: But I think and Tim, I appreciate that point because, and this is something I've been meditating on today and I think coming out of Covid, and it was such a difficult time, all these companies are like, man, remote work. We don't have to pay rent on this big expensive office building, blah, blah, blah.

And there are upsides to that, but there are significant downsides. And seeing one another is, and I think as our church has experienced in so many different capacities, it is crucial to what we're trying to do together and it's crucial to relationship. And I think that's true for the time Austin and I got to just rub shoulders together.

Tim Muehlhoff: We had our first faculty retreat in how long, Rick?

Rick Langer: Oh wow. It was like 10 or 11 years because of a variety of reasons.

Tim Muehlhoff: Variety of reasons.

Rick Langer: For a while it was Covid things.

Tim Muehlhoff: And you know what it's like when you have that isolation from each other, you just start ... negative thoughts can really start to take root. And I found it amazing just being in the line to get dinner and just talking to people I had not talked to face to face. It really, really made a difference.

And I think we're losing that today that we don't see people we disagree with or have issues with on a regular basis. So I love that idea that this friendship was forged, not just always sitting down and having big dramatic conversations, but it's the goofy, it's the day-to-day stuff that was very important.

Rick Langer: And how did you kind of drift into race conversation? Was it just because of the news items that were coming up and kind of bopped into it randomly? Or was there a turn that you began to realize this is a person that I could have meaningful conversations with about this topic and I should kind of lean in on that?

Austin Suter: When Michael Brown was killed and Ferguson erupted, that impacted me in a way that no news story has before or since. I didn't sleep for the better part of a week. I was in really rough shape and I was frustrated that I was perceiving that people around me didn't care and Isaac cared.

And so that's really what just these horrible circumstances forced me onto my knees. Isaac and I started meeting up and praying, and Isaac was really ministering to me in that because he had been there before in terms of experiencing and being affected by racial tragedy. And it was the first one to really impact me, perhaps to my shame. But yeah, that's what happened.

Tim Muehlhoff: Austin, can you break that down just a little bit? I mean, what was it about that specific situation that really affected you in a way that other tragedies had not quite touched you that deeply?

Austin Suter: So Isaac mentioned my upbringing and I had great parents who discipled me really well on matters of race and unity. But a lot of that was hypothetical because I didn't grow up in a very diverse environment. And so I didn't have a black friend until college. And so as I started making friends and building these relationships, I started hearing from others about their experience in America and realizing slowly over time, thanks to patient endurance by friends who were bearing with me, we're experiencing very different Americas.

And I think prior racial tragedies had happened while I was still coming to that realization and I wasn't ready. I didn't have enough sense of that different experience to be able to empathize and care. And so I was just in a different place when Michael Brown was killed and personally frustrated that folks who talked a lot about the limited role of government or things like that all of a sudden didn't care when the heavy hand of the state was being brought against people who don't look like them.

Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah. Isaac, what was it about the struggle that just resonated with you to watch Austin and process as a white majority person?

Isaac Adams: It's so interesting. I mean, I'm trying to ... I mean this as not even just a way, my birthday's around the corner and I'm still a young man, and I mean it not in a humorous way of like, I can't remember, but I mean it in the sense of a friendship is such an interesting thing because you don't file them as like this happened, then this happened, then this happened.

And in some sense in the Proverbs talking about a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity, there was just a lot of adversity. I think there was a lot of spiritual warfare going on, and we found camaraderie in this trench. And in seeing Austin in that place, it was even less like, okay, you agree with me on this thing or I agree with you, and more so it was just like, this is such a brutal time.

People are being so brutal toward one another. And I think we were able to be kind to one another, and that was not insignificant. And so it was more so just wanting to be, even if I had found that Austin had disagreed with me or me him, I think there was an appreciation for the fact that we could be kind in a part, in a season of American life and American evangelical life that was just so utterly brutal.

And I think that's, people talk about Rome was a very brutal world, and that kind of brutality still exists in our language with one another and so many things. So anyway, I think there was a way to say, this person is deeply hurting and I'm encouraged that they're hurting about these things and I think the Christian thing is to care and to minister.

Austin Suter: Well, Isaac, I think it's also possible that you don't remember as much of it because you were just being a Christian.

Isaac Adams: I was trying to not say it, I feel like I was just ...

Austin Suter: But you don't realize, you didn't realize, and I may never have even said anything about this, how much what you did in showing compassion to me and meeting with me and praying with me and explaining things to me about your own experience, you might not have realized in the moment how impactful that was. And so it stands out more to me than you.

Isaac Adams: Yeah. I think I pray that's true. I'm sure that's true. And that's why I'm like, if there's no file entitled August 16th, 2014, I tried to be nice that day. And I hope, and that's a lot of what we talk about in our ministry, which is why it's intangible, it's hard to measure these intangibles, but what we're trying to do is deeper than DEI training in that sense of, well, we want these statistics and you can use these words and you can't use these.

And I'm not saying there's not a place for any of that, but I'm simply saying, yeah, I hope that's true. And all the ways Austin's been a Christian toward me and I've not noticed because this is what Christians do and should do.

Tim Muehlhoff: So we're going to get to disagreements and how do you deal with disagreements within a friendship. So I'm going to just be transparent. So Austin, you are feeling as a white Christian, this racial turmoil, this racial pain, this is where, and I'll speak for myself, this is where I get stuck because of all the messaging I've gotten. Like in my rhetoric class, we watched this documentary called Who We Are, A Chronicle Racism in America.

And it was just beyond heartbreaking, but here's what I've been told, but don't walk up to a black colleague and ask them what they think about racism because asking that black colleague to speak for all of the black African-American community. So I tend to just not say anything because I'm really afraid to offend.

And so I just kind of don't bring up that topic and that's where I feel like I get stuck. So help me, both of you to say, what would be your suggestion in that moment of Austin, of a person having your experience, like all the multitude of bad that we've seen, but this one stuck, this one just destabilized you? Now what do you do with that when you go to a black brother or sister, are there and don'ts of what to do?

Austin Suter: Well, Isaac has actually written a very good article called Before You Ask Your Black Friend 51ÂÜÀò Race.

Tim Muehlhoff: Oh.

Austin Suter: Maybe we can link to that in the show notes [inaudible 00:18:57].

Rick Langer: Yeah. That'd be great.

Austin Suter: Oh, that'd be great.

Rick Langer: If you could send us a link, that'd be wonderful.

Austin Suter: Yeah, it's a great article. I think our story, me and Isaac is a little bit unique in that we developed a friendship in a pressure cooker. And that's not normal and I would say not ideal. I mean I praise God for the way it happened and for the ways it provided for me.

But I think ideally you just build a friendship with somebody and you have that rapport and you have that real relationship and harder things will come up as life happens and you can deal with these harder and more complicated conversations, but you're doing so in the context of an established friendship where there's rapport, where there's understanding and you can do it that way.

And then in Isaac's piece, there's all kinds of ways you can educate yourself so that you're asking good and helpful questions rather than looking to your friends to be your primary resource on matters of race.

Isaac Adams: Yeah, I think that is well said, brother. Austin and I were at a funeral the other day and honoring the life of a dear man who was clearly a good friend to a lot of people. And one of the people giving a eulogy said that the Bible mentions friendship over 50 times. Tim, one thing I appreciate about your honesty here, you're just like, I'm just going to speak transparently.

I think friends are people we can do that with. I think that when we think of our friends, I think we typically think, who we're really thinking of are people we feel safe to be transparent with. And so I think you love your friend, but you're called to love everybody. And so loving your friends and loving people who aren't your friends sometimes looks different because, hey, if you're my friend, I might ask you this, but if you're not my friend, it actually might love you better for me to not ask you this.

So that's where hopefully that article gets at that. But I think that's where this concept of friendship is so important. The Lord says, no longer do I call you servants. A servant does not know his master's business, but now I call you friends. Abraham was a friend of God, James says. And so I think some people can hear that, especially in the racial kind of discourse today and say, oh, well, you're just saying well, just be friends with everyone and personal relationships will change everything and it's new laws we need.

And we're not saying that, but we are saying that friendship is not insignificant. And ideally you want to have the friendship there so that when the tragedy comes, you already have the context in which you can enter that arena. But like Austin said, it's hard, like a camel through the eye of a needle hard when the relationship isn't there.

And so that's where I think it gets to this idea. And something Austin and I talk about with our work is we're trying to create cultures and environments so that, and I think a mark of a culture is that there are relationships existing in this environment, ecosystem, whatever, that when tragedy comes, people aren't scrambling to build new relationships because they're already there.

Do you see? And so that's the work we have to do when the stuff isn't in the headlines of now is relationship building season because that presidential election is coming up in 2024, and let us have the shock absorbers in place now so that when the heat comes and come it will, we're ready to absorb it. Does that make sense?

Rick Langer: Yeah. I worked for years doing small group ministry at our church and one of the things that one of my colleagues and fellow pastors, he bumped into the statistic that the average person every four years goes through some kind of a major life crisis. I don't know where they got the statistics from, but the action point he draw that I thought was really wise is to say, when you're going through the life crisis, you're so exhausted, you're so hurt, you're so worried, whatever it might be that you don't have time to form meaningful relationship that'll support you and help bear your burdens.

So the time you need to do this is now so that when those crises hit, you have that already in place. And I hear you saying a very similar thing about these kinds of tragedies, friendships if you want to say, what do we do about this? Part of it's what are you doing when nothing is really on the plate and you have an opportunity to build things without the crisis context.

Isaac Adams: Exactly, because then you can say, hey, I've already been transparent with this and I need to be all the more transparent with you.

Rick Langer: Let me pick up one other thing that you guys, you talked about this when you were out here, I just wanted to talk about it a little bit more and that is that it seems like grace has been kind of forgotten or neglected in conversations in general in our country and probably in particular about race.

In fact, it seems actually to be problematized relative to race as if grace shouldn't apply. It seems that some people think that being gracious towards others is actually denying the significance of the race problem and failing to work for justice. Have you sensed this as well? And if so, how would you respond? What would you say to that?

Austin Suter: A few thoughts. I mean, one reaction is that I think when folks are speaking or minimizing grace, sometimes what they mean is a cheap grace and a grace that only pays lip service to the problems of racism and we'll make some apology but won't actually do anything about it. And I think folks are right to call that out. Now how we do that obviously needs to be within a Christian framework that Jesus died for sinners and that includes racists and we are commanded to forgive and love.

So it's going to be, in my experience, a little bit unsatisfying for if you will, both sides of the conversation. There will be people who feel like you're being too gracious and people who feel like you're not being gracious enough. And just because you're in the middle doesn't mean you're right. But that has just been my experience with that.

Isaac Adams: Yeah, I think reading Tim Keller's book on forgiveness was helpful for me. It was one of those books I put down and it worked on me long after I read it. And he talks about how the main parable Jesus gave us about forgiveness is actually a story of forgiveness failure, someone failing to forgive. And that makes sense because we are so bad at forgiving.

I mean that tongue in cheek, but I mean seriously, it's a resource that we are not developed well in for I'm sure so many different reasons. And so we have this account about forgiveness because people might hear me say, we're so bad at forgiving, they're like, yeah, let's just call it maybe the grace side is like, yeah, we don't give grace.

But part of forgiving is dealing with things, is reckoning with things. And actually giving is not just saying, well, let me just sweep it under the rug. Joseph is like, yeah, y'all meant it for evil. It was evil what y'all did. Y'all meant it for evil. But the story doesn't stop there. And so I think if there's going to be reconciliation, there has to be a reckoning. Because I think Austin and I's friendship is layered with lots of grace, but that we have had very hard conversations with one another.

And I think people think it's either one or two of those things if you're going to truly be gracious. And I think what y'all's conference did such a good job of when we came out was saying truth and grace are inseparable and if both are to be had in their wholeness. And so we don't want one without the other. And often I think in the kind of polarized world that acts as if there's no nuance, acts as if there's no caveats, we want to just have all truth or we want to just have all grace and our savior came as the embodiment of both.

Tim Muehlhoff: Can you give us an instance without going into too much personal detail of when you needed to ask for forgiveness from each other? And what does that look like? How does one do that, have the forgiveness conversation?

Austin Suter: One thing Isaac's really good at, and I've learned from him in this area, is just in keeping really short accounts and not letting little things become big things. And so I would say we are very regularly apologizing to each other for little things.

Isaac Adams: That's good.

Austin Suter: And just saying, I'm sorry about the way that came out. I'm sorry for dropping the ball here and by just sort of having that as a regular rhythm nearly every time we talk. But the net effect is not one that feels burdensome with guilt. It feels light and it feels clear like there's nothing between us.

Isaac Adams: Yeah. And just so for the listener's sake, and so we can be specific. Here's an instance, when we were at a 51ÂÜÀò, we were doing some publicly, and we were having a public Q and A. And Austin and I, I think the closer you are with someone, the more freedom you have to take jabs but I think jabs are, you have to be careful with them, even with people you're close with.

And it's just our world is fluent in sarcasm and tearing down and having fun at someone else's expense. And so we're talking, and I have some fun at Austin's expense publicly in front of people he's never met and who've never met him. And I got the laugh, but Austin confronted me about that and I needed to apologize. It was wrong. I dishonored him. I don't think Jesus would do that in public. And so he was like, "We're actually commanded to outdo one another in showing honor."

And so that was one instance where, as we're debriefing things, as we're reviewing things, that I just had to own something and be like, yeah, I was wrong to do that. And I think what helps with that is not basing our entire relation ... Our culture, we're just so easily offended now that to offend me is to end the relationship. It's like you're not going to have many relationships because everyone offends and you offend everyone.

It is just like, but to have the ability of like, yeah, I know this brother loves me. That's not in question. So I've got some things I need to say to him. He's got some things he needs to say to me. And if we can't absorb that, we can't do the very thing we're preaching, which is be united and pray together. That'd be one example, Tim.

Rick Langer: And Austin did that for you, end up feeling well reconciled and dealt with?

Isaac Adams: I got to be honest, I hadn't remembered that happened until I-

Rick Langer: So, that's a good sign, right?

Isaac Adams: Apparently so. Well, Austin commended me earlier. So one thing I've learned from Austin, I'm on the more sensitive side of this relationship and I'll probably remember things like that far more easily. And Austin, if I keep short accounts, Austin does a great job in having short memories in the same vein. I think that's real. That is real forgiveness. It's just like, hey man, I'm not bringing it up every time you talk or using it over your head. And it's taught me to just try to be more careful with my tongue in public.

Tim Muehlhoff: Is it that you have to then, with every comment go to a friend or what signals to you that, okay, I think I need to check in with Austin about that comment? Let me just give you a background real quick. Rick and I, Rick said something, we were having a conversation. Rick said something, it was not a huge thing, but it stayed with me. So we're on day two and I'm still thinking about this comment.

And so I said, "I'm just going to bring it up to Rick." So I did, he handled it great and I knew he would. That's the history part. That's what's really cool about our friendship. So what's the criteria Isaac for like, hey, I probably need to check in on this one? What signaled to you that you might need to talk to Austin about this?

Isaac Adams: Well, on that one, Austin actually confronted me on it. We were just reviewing the day, so like-

Tim Muehlhoff: Okay, good.

Isaac Adams: ... one signal is hopefully just obedience. Austin being a Christian, Matthew 18, like, hey, if you see your brother is tripping, is in sin, you should say something. But there's also, Jesus also gives us the command of if you know your brother has something against you, Jesus is like, don't even come to church. Square it up, leave your gift at the altar, leave church and go talk in the hall way.

He's so earnest about this like, don't let the sun go. So I'm sure there's been other instances. I would say two things, but the quickest criteria, and I think the most evident is if it affects your relationship with someone, you should say something. So that is really useful because I think it may not even be sinful. And man, Austin, I'm sure has had to deal with a lot of sensitive Isaac being like, this affects my relationship.

But then it's also useful because I'm like, okay, if so many things are affecting the relationship, maybe I actually just need to get a bigger backbone. Maybe I am being sensitive. But like you said, Tim, there's things, they just stay with you and they get heavier, they grow. It's like mold, it just grows really fast.

So like, hey, can I bring this to light? It's affecting our friendship. So that's something Austin and I have had lots of conversation about like, hey, I just need to say something. The other thing is, and this one is less intuitive, but hopefully I think and hope, a strength of mind if I can just say it, is reading the room.

And so I'm like, I'm just reading the room and I can, what's up man? And we can read each other's moods or shifts in tone and I'm like, something's off. Something's off. And I don't want it to be off. And I think so much of us, we settle for off because we're like, well, I'd rather not deal with it. I'd rather not deal with the blowup.

Tim Muehlhoff: Oh my gosh, say that again, Isaac. Say what you just said again. We settle for off.

Isaac Adams: We just settle. Well, you settle for off because it's like well, off is easier. Often love, I think Disney has discipled us so well in thinking that love should be easy, natural and feel lovely all the time. And the cross shows us love is extremely painful and it's extremely tedious. And one thing I was just thinking as you all were talking and opening up the episode is friendship takes work.

And when you already work a long job and you're tired, it was like, who wants to do more work? But it takes work. And anyone listening to our podcast is like, oh, these guys get along great, I feel sorry if they think that it's not taken work it has from both of us. And so that would be my answer on that one.

Austin Suter: I want to get back to something you just said, but before I do, slight diversion is just to extol the virtue of a really helpful question, what did you mean by that? So much relational discord is the result of misunderstanding and of letting misunderstanding persist instead of clarifying because we're afraid of the hard conversation.

Tim Muehlhoff: We call that perception checking. It's a great term, it's not original to me, but I love that phrase, Austin, perception checking. I have a perception of that. And so to go back to me and Rick just for a second. I had a perception, and maybe it was because I was tired, frazzled, whatever. I went to Rick, we resolved it in all of what, 30 seconds.

Because I said, "All right, here's how I took that comment." And Rick's like, "Okay, let me just be clear. I did not mean that at all." And it was so easy as not to give the devil a foothold, if I just would have stewed about it, Isaac, you're off. I'm just going to stay in the off thing and because I'm not going to bring it up. Why rock the boat? All that kind of stuff.

So I thought that was really cool. Hey, we were wondering if we could do this. So this was one that got resolved pretty quickly. Austin brought it up, Isaac recognized it, boom. But we were wondering if we could do a different podcast on one that perhaps wasn't so quickly resolved and actually took some relational elbow grease to really get at.

So could we do this? Could we have you guys back on for another podcast and maybe talk about a disagreement that took much more finagling? Would you guys be up for that?

Austin Suter: Would love to. 

Isaac Adams: Yep, definitely.

Tim Muehlhoff: That'd be great.

Rick Langer: Thanks for joining us for this time. It's so great to have Isaac and Austin with us and talk a little bit, not just about race matters, but about friendship, about just the difficulty. Sometimes it comes up with this and I think it's well worth pursuing some of that. But thanks so much for joining us.

We encourage you to be a regular subscriber. You can find us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever it is that you might check those sorts of things. And we would also encourage you to check out the winsomeconviction.com website because we have a lot of other resources available there. Thanks again for joining us for this episode.