Curt Kempton and Melody Edwards ask a tough question in this episode of The Soul Proprietor Podcast: is it God guiding decisions, or is it us? They dig into faith vs personal accountability, sharing real-life stories that challenge traditional beliefs. The conversation explores how to tell the difference between divine inspiration and personal ambition, and why humility and responsibility matter when navigating both faith and business.

With honesty and humor, they admit the tension of faith and skepticism in their own lives. The episode highlights that faith isn’t a simple answer; it’s an ongoing process of growth, doubt, and discovery.

Listeners are invited to reflect on their own beliefs and to see both faith and entrepreneurship as journeys shaped by uncertainty, responsibility, and opportunity.

Welcome to the Sole Proprietor podcast.

I'm Kirk Kempton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week, we dive into the ethical questions and dilemmas that keep entrepreneurs up at night.

We love talking about the soul of your business, which means having tough conversations that challenge what we believe and push us to think deeper about business values and what really matters.

Whether you're building your own company or exploring life's big questions, you are welcome here.

Hey, Kurt.

Hey, Melody.

How are you?

Oh, good.

It's a good day today.

It's spring here.

Oh, spring.

What is that?

I've never experienced such a thing.

Oh, it's glorious.

Really cold or burning hot.

That's just Phoenix.

Phoenix's two temperatures.

Yeah, well, we are really cold.

And then one day we had a warm day, so we all felt really happy.

And then the next day, it snowed, so we felt sad again.

But that was just.

Now it's almost warmish.

And then I've heard it's going to be warm after this.

So that's where April Fools is.

That's what it's all about.

Well, I can promise you this.

It will be hot sometimes, it'll be cold sometimes.

And then other times, it'll be in between.

Oh, yeah.

So deep.

Well, I. I.

People talk about the weather, and I'm like.

It's like when I listen to people talking about sports, I'm like, you mean they were sportsing really hard and, like.

Because you don't get it.

Yeah, yeah.

It's the lack of spring and fall leaves the context.

There's a lot of context missing for you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what are we talking about today?

Well, Mellie, today I am really excited.

Talk about a question that was part of my faith crisis introduction.

I'm gonna paint a picture for you.

I am sitting at church, and Sister so and so in the church has been struggling with some really bad kidney problems.

And these kidney problems are putting her on the list for a transplant.

They're not able to find anybody.

And.

And so how fast can we get her?

They're not even willing to do the surgery on her because of all the other issues going on.

So the whole congregation is praying and fasting for her to get a kidney, to be able to get this approval, but not.

The approval won't even come, and you wouldn't believe it, but when the kidney didn't come, it was like, all, glory to God.

Congratulations.

She's released from the pain of this world.

God, in all your infinite wisdom, as we prayed and fasted for something, you gave her death And I've had lots and lots of experiences in my life with prayer, but that one was kind of one where I was like, God can't lose, can he?

Like God.

And you know, obviously someone who is not in a faith crisis would just look at you and go, of course you can't lose.

He's all powerful, he's God, he knows everything from the beginning to the end.

But as a business owner, I know what it's like to like lose.

Like sometimes I'm not right, I can't get everything.

And maybe, maybe it's because I'm not an all powerful being, but I can't help but wonder about certain things.

Am I giving all glory to God or taking it on my chin like I'm the problem or whatever?

And am, is it me?

Is it, is it me or is it God?

And have I already predetermined in our, in our religion there's that, do you have the, do you have the faith to not have your prayer answered?

That's kind of the way that they phrase it.

There's the doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith.

There's also the, do you have the faith to not be healed?

Is the, is the saying.

So my question for you, Melody, as we go into today is this can happen in lots of different scenarios.

It can happen in the scenario where, where everybody's hoping for one single result, or it can happen where you're like, God, what do I do here?

And then lo and behold, my phone rings and God made my phone ring and whatever.

But where do you fall in your faith journey?

On the interpretation of answer to prayers or even inspiration?

Because I want to get into that today too.

Inspiration that you may receive from God or from your brain.

How do you digest that sort of thing?

Well, it definitely, a lot of it is I have like a cynical being inside of me that fights everything at all times.

And this is one of those areas where I never be clear.

And so I've had people around me, a lot of people who would say, well it was a God thing, obviously that's why this thing happened.

Or it wasn't meant to be, God didn't will it to be, God didn't want it to be.

And to me, sometimes there's a lot of personal responsibility that has been released in order to be able to.

And by that statement, that's how the cynical part of my brain thinks about it, that when you're saying that thing, it releases you from all autonomy, all of your personal responsibility and you get to just be like well, it's a God thing.

I often, I often wondered when we pray.

Yeah.

What's the point of praying if it's just going to be a God thing anyway?

Does that fit into your.

Does that fit into your.

I don't think of.

I struggle with prayer as a thing.

I do, by the way, talk to God, whoever the God is.

It's the God of my raising.

But it's a conversation.

It's not a prayer.

Okay.

And.

And that's one thing too, is like, if I was praying, it would feel insincere, but I can talk to him.

So I guess these are the conversations I have with God.

Are.

Don't you.

Isn't there free will?

Do we believe in that thing?

And in, you know, looking at business, for instance, like there are so many times where people just say, well, if you knew more, if you worked harder.

If.

It's always like we take so much personal responsibility on our shoulders about, like, why we might fail.

I'm always thinking that it's.

If I had just done this better or whatever.

And then sometimes people who are successful can.

We'll just be like, you know, you listen to the Lord and you follow the instructions.

You're going to be successful.

There's no other way.

Just like me.

Yeah, just like me.

Do you hear the braggadociousness?

Like, give all glory to God.

If you can be as humble and.

Listen in my head, yes, we got it.

We got to entertain the cynic enough that.

Listen, I think humility is a very important thing and I want to be really careful as I talk about this that I do honor humility.

And what I'm saying is that, that humility is obviously an active ingredient.

I think in, in people's success in their life and maybe even in their failure.

Humility can be an interesting.

You don't have to be a pushover.

You be humble.

It's not required actually at all, though we know a lot of people who have no humility.

Like false humility.

Is that a thing?

Oh, that is a thing.

But as we give credit to humility for what it is and what it does, and frankly, the very desirable personality trait that I think it is.

Yes.

The other thing I look at is I go, okay, so free will, we are here.

I be interested to see what our viewers all think.

But I really do think free will is the point of being here.

Like, it's the main active ingredient.

I agree.

And I'm not sure if we believe God has free will.

I mean, everyone say, oh, no, he's Powerful.

He could do whatever he wants.

I understand, but what's the whole point of I call down fire from heaven and he has to do it or he decides he's not going to do it for his.

For a specific reason there is some sort of algebraic equation to whether or not he answers our prayers or, or whatever.

So yeah, that's.

I.

You hit a point that's I think really important is there's that balance of I believe in God, I know God's got my back, he's gonna, he's not gonna let anything bad happen to me that shouldn't.

And sometimes I have to pray to instigate it and other times I don't.

And if I, if I exercise my free will in a certain way, things will happen.

And if I exercise my free will in other ways, it won't happen.

But the problem also is that I know so many people who are so God fearing, God loving, whatever you want to call it.

And when people talk like that of saying like, you just have to pray, you just have to believe and everything, it's almost like to me, the way that it sounds, nobody be offended out there, but it sounds like your fairy godmother is going to come with a wand and all your wishes will come true.

And then there are people who are such faithful servants of the Lord who I see battered and broken, who are doing their very best.

Well, if it worked, why wouldn't it work for them and for everybody?

And the messaging I tend to hear is like, well, maybe they didn't pray hard enough.

I don't know.

Like.

Well, I'll tell you that I gotta be really careful here.

Well, we'll edit this out if we need to, guys.

Yeah, yeah.

I've noticed that there are people who put a lot of things like in their email signatures that are very faithful.

Part of their signature.

God first.

We're God people.

Yeah.

You know, we serve.

As for me and my house will serve the Lord and it's in their business.

Signature.

I call that.

I think I've mentioned this one time before, I call it punching people in the face of your Jesus ring.

Like, hey, you know, I'm Christian, do business me because I'm Christian.

Or.

Okay, anyway, so the point is people punch in the face, they're Jesus ring.

Do you know who I noticed has the hardest time paying, paying their bills, financial commitments?

It's.

There is a.

There seems to be a direct correlation.

Interesting.

And I'm, I'm trying to be careful because correlation is not causation.

And I.

And I know that this is very shady ground that I'm on.

You're not saying it's scientific fact.

Yeah.

It's just your.

What?

You have your experience in your world.

Yeah.

Yes.

And so with that, I also will say that that's part of humility.

These are people who are giving the shirt off their back, and guess what?

That means they probably don't make a ton of profit.

Right.

You know, like I do know.

Yeah.

That you don't have to be a God person to not, you know, to give the shirt off your back also.

But those are the people.

It's like those givers, they just give.

And it kind of sucks because those are the people who should get the most profit if.

If the world was fair, in my view.

Yeah.

But it's going to be hard for the world to ever be fair to those people because they're so busy giving everything away and finding every opportunity to give away their time and energy.

I feel very triggered right now.

Yeah, I know, I know.

Why are you saying this to me?

I'm saying it because as we talk about humility, there's humility and there's meekness.

Humility can have a certain strength to it, and I think that's really beautiful.

Meekness, as we learned about on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about the meek shall inherit the earth.

And I think about that a lot because meek is genuinely just soft.

Right.

Like when you look up the word meek and you define it, it's truly just talking about being submissive, rolling over on your back, and just letting what the powers that be give them what they ask.

Yeah, that's a good point.

And that's.

That's the excuse I feel that I experience with people sometimes is, you know, a lot of times there's times when we need to take a stand, I think, and I won't be specific, but there are times when something is right or wrong.

Black and white, and very specifically, like, should we murder people?

I think that's pretty black and white.

A no.

Somebody could argue it, but I was.

Literally just talking to my son about that today.

Oh, is that we agree we shouldn't murder people?

Right?

Yes.

All right, well, what about David and Goliath?

Well, he had to do that.

What about all of the wars throughout the Bible and women and children getting slaughtered in the name of God?

You know what?

I just feel like the Bible, and this is one of the important things about it being a God thing, is that I know a lot of people will say that the Bible is the Infallible word of God.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

It's straight from heaven to us.

Which, ironically, that book has been the author of more religions than I could shake a stick at.

And more wars.

And more wars.

The contradictions that run throughout the Bible.

I think there's gonna be people who are, like, right.

Right now I can see people.

What is he saying?

I'm saying that if you would like, we could hash out Bible verses and I can show you verses that disagree with some of the points, and it's necessary.

Which goes back to our thing.

God, who is unchangeable but definitely changes a lot.

Has come across so many different.

Yes, in this situation.

No, in those situations, except for when it's sunny outside or if it's a different year or we do have slavery.

We don't have slavery.

This God who is unchangeable has allowed a book full of contradictions to allow us to be very confused.

Is this the right thing?

Is it the wrong thing?

Is this God answering?

Is this me answering?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Because this unchangeable being is so different based on what you're reading, when you're reading it, who it is and what the prayer was for and who it was for and what the circumstances were.

What version of the Bible you're reading.

There's so many versions.

What's the real Bible?

Right.

Here's the thing.

Like, there are so many different versions.

And people study this their whole life.

They are scholars of the Bible well beyond what any.

You know, these are true scholars.

And eventually they come to consensus in certain religious.

Like, look at Catholics.

Like they have the Pope and all of the other people in the popey world.

And like, they look.

Well, they just look at.

I know it sounds a little potpourri.

Like, oh, gosh, get out of here.

Okay.

Your dad jokes are off, though.

I know.

It's what my brain thought anyway.

But, like, these people are making human decisions about this book, and then they're sticking to.

Yep.

This is the.

This is the part we're gonna choose to believe, even though there's two contrasting ideas where he's saying the same exact thing in opposite.

I mean, saying opposite things.

The.

You know what I'm saying?

Like the slavery one, for instance.

Or there.

There's so many things where people can read what they want to read, and then they believe it, and that's.

That's the story that they're sticking to, and there's nothing outside of that, and that's like A lot of Christians in our country, I. I don't mind saying that.

That's what I see.

That's what I experience from them.

Yeah.

Well, then let's look at a different angle here then, from our question.

Our question is, is it God or is it me?

I had inspiration to do this thing, right?

Or God told me this is where I need to move.

This is the thing, the job I need to take, and it doesn't work, or it does work, or, you know, whatever it is.

I know that when we look at our two different perspectives, we have very different perspectives in that I am certain that there is a God.

I'm certain of it.

I don't know why God allows himself to be worshiped in so many different forms and fashions and with different doctrines and everything.

I still have a lot of confusion around that.

But I know what's been answered for me.

And I'm certain that there's a God.

Yet I am still as a business owner, as a follower of God, as a husband, as a father, as a member of my community.

There are so many different applications to where I go.

He says I'm supposed to ask him, but his will is going to be done.

I can't ask him to do anything outside of his will.

How do you know his will?

Well, what's the point?

I'll find out his will at the end.

Right?

Like, I could save myself and him a bunch of time by just not praying because he's going to do his will.

Do you think this is like the manifestation issue that we have with people who aren't spiritually, you know, Christian or whatever of like, you just have to believe in it.

It will manifest.

It'll become.

And if it doesn't, it wasn't meant to be like that.

Kind of like earthy, crunchy.

It sounds similar.

I don't think it relates just to God, because humans, like we all do, believe in something.

It's not.

Even if people don't believe in God like we've talked about, they might believe in nature, or they might believe in manifestation or spirituality or whatever.

And there's always a loophole, as I call it.

That's it.

You use the word.

You triggered me.

That's it.

Why are we giving God loopholes?

He's all powerful.

He doesn't need a loophole.

Or why are we taking things and making them loopholes?

And why are we giving ourselves loopholes?

Yeah.

And now.

Now you said earlier it goes both ways.

Yeah.

My belief requires me to give God a bunch of loopholes.

So that I can be a strong believer and not have doubts.

That's, that's the one side.

The other side is, is that as I follow God, the loophole is, is I'm allowed to do whatever I want and I have a license to do it because God instructed me.

Those are the two sides of the same coin.

I'm going to steamroll you because God told me that that was what was his will.

And you better not hold me accountable to this because, because I've got, I'm a card carrying, faithful person.

And God said so.

And God said so.

So what are you going to say to that?

You can't.

Like, I can't, I can't be like, how do you know God said so?

God said so because I'm a faithful person and it's in my head and he and I have a relationship.

And, and that is what makes it hard because listen, did I ever tell you that I was in an institutionalized when I was young, just offhanded?

No, I never heard this.

This is great.

We can talk about this in the future.

But I was, I had mental health issues as a, as a teenager going into adulthood.

And I met a lot of people in that place that had severe mental health issues who truly believed that God was in their head and that they, and they were schizophrenic, I guess.

And I'm not saying please, oh, gosh, this could go the wrong way if this clip was taken.

All Christians are Christ.

No, I will not say it.

But what I'm saying is that there are so many different things going on in our brains.

Like we don't understand our brains.

They're so complicated.

And with our spirituality there's like, how do we know what is just us, our human selfishness and what is actually the Lord Jesus Christ?

Amen.

I don't know.

Wait, is it the Lord Jesus Christ?

I don't think so.

Yeah, well, that's how I would do it.

Yeah.

That's another thing is that we keep talking about this.

I was just getting ready to bring up another example of the woman taken in adultery.

And I realized that for our Muslim or Buddhist or Islamic friends that are listening, that they're like, can these guys ever use an example outside of Christianity?

I don't know any good ones.

But I, I'm not deep enough into it.

But I think that this is a universal point here.

You know, when I was a missionary for my church, people would get after me because, hey, you guys believe your works are going to get you to heaven.

You don't believe in grace.

And they were just repeating something that their pastor had told them and.

And to get the Mormon missionaries off their backs.

And, you know, I look back on it and I think I would have answered the questions very differently.

But at the time, I was like, well, obviously my works show my faith.

Like, you know, I can go into the scriptures and I can show you that by my works, you can see my faith kind of thing.

But I also think it's important that we point out the woman taken in adultery.

The infinite grace that is shown is that, was she upset that she got caught?

Was she upset what she had done?

Where was the man?

Is this a Bible thing?

Oh, yes, Sorry.

Okay, go tell me the story first so that anybody else like me.

Thank you.

Yes.

Okay.

So a woman's brought before Jesus and they're ready to stone her.

And they said, hey, this woman was taken in adultery.

I don't know where the guy was supposedly, you know, maybe it's not as big a deal for a guy to blander around, but whatever.

The Jewish law is such a weird thing, man.

But anyhow, they said, we're going to stone her.

You know, what do you think we should do with her?

Jesus?

But here's our chance to show that he's a violent, not, you know, not such a nice guy.

He's got to follow the Jewish law.

We're going to get him either way.

And what does Jesus say?

He says, hey, whoever's without sin, you go ahead and you cast the first stone.

Oh, yeah, this story.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So was she tearful and sad?

And when Jesus was thinking about it, was he like, yeah, she shows real remorse here.

Was she showing, like, where's the dissectionist?

Was she sorry she got caught?

Was she sorry she actually did it?

Was she being raped was like, what is the con?

What is the stuff around it?

But that wasn't the lesson.

The lesson that we are learning is is that God's grace is big enough for all of this stuff.

And as a church, that expects a lot of their people, which the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints does.

People will mistake that for saying, hey, you know, your church expects, like, you're doing it for God to get yourself into heaven.

And I think that the way I would answer it now is that God has always expected his people to be authentic to who they are, to be believers, not to have a belief, but to be a believer.

And, yeah, I'm looking for opportunities to believe and to do things, but then it gets to this kind of funky ground where you put the blinders on, you ignore any sign outside of like, you know, again, doubting your doubts before you doubt your faith.

So here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to put up blinders to anything that would cast doubt on what I believe so that I can wholly focus on what I air quotes believe.

And the reason I'm using air quotes here is because, or what I want to do, okay, do I believe if I am not willing to digest anything that would be contrary to it, to what I believe, Even look up to see something that might challenge my belief?

Because in that challenging moment, if you truly just want to know the truth and you want to knock and ask and receive, there, there's a responsibility as the learner that God just put something into your life.

Well, Satan put it into my life really, because the guy who's, or girl who's putting it in across your plate, they believe just as hardcore on something else.

And I think that, that as a missionary was a very insightful thing that I'm going around trying to teach people.

I don't want to learn from other people per se.

Then you start opening your mind and hearing what other people had to say and you know, people listen to you and there's this exchange that goes back and forth and you start to feel yourself start to mold a little bit, like, hey, I can hear what other people have to say and see how it fits into my experience of life and what God's revealed to me and so on and so forth.

Isn't that called emotional intelligence, like the growth of that part of your life?

I think so, because look, when I, when I lived in Morocco, I had no understanding or knowledge about Islam before that.

And what I learned about people was that they're all the same.

It's all the same stuff everywhere.

We all want the same things, we all do the same kinds of things.

And we all want to believe in something.

And some of us believe hardcore and some of us believe like a Sunday Christian or an Easter Christian, a holiday Christian, you know.

So I think when you're open to seeing something out or hearing something outside of just really hearing, opening your mind, being curious about things that are outside of your stated and tried and true belief system.

It's scary because you have to think on a different level.

But I think you, it's the only way to grow.

I mean, it's painful too.

I mean, you've had a lot of pain in that, but it can scare people.

But I, I Think that what was so eye opening for me in that sort of journey is realizing that it's not faithful, it's not full of faith to not even allow those challenges to come across your plate.

And likewise, it's not faithful, I think, to receive these answers from heaven and always assume that they're from heaven.

Right.

Because then you're ruling out your own thoughts and you're ruling out your own free will sometimes and you're ruling out the idea of.

In our church, we refer to it as the natural man.

I apologize that I might not know the terminology that other religions might call it, but hopefully it'll make sense when I say, like the natural man is, our scripture says, is an enemy to God and has been and always will be.

And it's our goal and with our free will to bend our will to become a friend of God or to become a disciple of God.

So have there been times in your life, and I'm sure there have been, or in your business where you have been kind of held accountable in a time when you've said like, this is the greater mission and this is what I think God wants of me.

And then somebody else has brought something like, but what about this?

And you've been like, I don't know, this is what my mission is, you know, has something like that come into your life ever?

Yeah, I would say even as a kid, I, as a kid I felt sorry for people who didn't understand what I understood.

I felt pity for people who had, who had strong beliefs that were wrong.

And then I started seeing you start out simple faith.

Then you have to start writing a bunch of fine print faith.

You understand very little, but it's all true.

Then you understand a little bit more, but you have to make some of it make sense.

You meet this kid who's of a different faith than you, whose family has that good feeling in their house and who genuinely is just a good boy.

I'm thinking back to my childhood.

Yeah, same.

I get that.

And I go, wow, he's a good boy.

Wow, that's weird that he could be a good boy and not have all the truth that I have.

And then there becomes a point where there's so much fine print that now we've moved into, I don't know, I am paranoid now that I've believed the wrong thing this whole time.

And then there's a part where you cycle back to simplicity and you realize I was worried about fine print.

I should have been worried about the direction or the overall direction.

I'm not even using the right word.

No, I, I hear you.

And can I just say that happens in business too.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, it's, you know, I think it might be an eternal truth.

I'm still testing this theory.

I think there's a long, long way for me to go here.

But yes, the layers of a tree, it's like the seasons, right?

As it goes through, it's simple, it gets complicated, then you become paranoid, then you back to harmony of simplicity again.

You have to bring it back.

And then guess what?

Now there's going to be new elements where it gets complicated again.

And then you're devastated that maybe you've believed wrong all this time.

And I think that there's.

Whether it's business.

I would have thought that something like this would happen in my marriage.

My marriage has always lived in that simplicity stage.

And I'm not saying that it's always been simple in our marriage, but I've never had to doubt.

Like, was marriage the right thing?

Is my wife the right person for me is, does she have my back?

You know, I mean, like, so I never have moved into the fine print stage of a marriage that I can think of.

Maybe I thought hard enough about it, maybe there's an element.

But either way, the point is, is that I, I do think that as we grow, we get pushed.

And the only thing you can do once it gets really complicated is either get really simplistic.

Well, even this is simplistic.

You or throw it out.

So I guess it's simplistic no matter what.

You just throw it all completely out.

Maybe.

Well, I don't know because simplistic could be a, an excuse as well if it gets really complicated with the fine print.

And like, that's been my experience with my life.

This is why we are always overthinking every single thing.

Right?

I want to get back to simplistic.

I want to get back to like, I believe this thing, this eternal truth.

But there's still going to be always lots of questions.

Lots of.

There's always going to be like, humanness is so messy and it's full of chaos and I don't know.

I hear what you're saying.

Maybe I'm thinking of simple differently.

Well, I was just talking to my son today, earlier today, and one of the things that came across the plate there was.

There's a whole.

Every snowflake is different.

They're all made out of water.

The same three elements, right?

H and then two O's, right.

But people are super different too.

And we all have our free will, which is where that messiness and all that comes from.

So we're all made of kind of the same elements, but we all act and socially, but then also, like, there's just our dispositions and all this other stuff.

And I was talking to him about it, and I said, the thing is, is that God obviously wants this.

You would see that the more that people loved and worshiped God, the more uniform that they would become.

But actually, it was later on in my life when I started meeting people in the business world that I was really becoming peers and people that I really respected.

It went from wow, this friend is a good boy, to holy mackerel, this is a man of God running a window cleaning business.

This is a man of God who runs a pet fence containment business.

And you go, they're doing it totally different ways.

But I don't wonder God's allowing me to see that this different person, this different manifestation of following him is good.

Yeah.

So I think you're.

You're right.

When I just.

On a not Christian level, on a more human level, the way that I look at it is like, there, everybody is so different, like snowflakes.

And there are so many, what I would call great people, humans who are just great people.

And they all believe different things and they're from all different countries.

And there's just something uniformly that I can say, like, they're equally great people.

They care about others.

They do the right things.

That in my view, you know, and they're so different from each other.

And that's what God would want.

That's what I want from humanity.

We can all be different.

That's what makes us great.

Because that's what a cult is.

When you have to think the same thing and wear the same clothes and act the same way, like, that's not a good thing.

And that's normally not where we go with society.

Like, we have our little tribes, of course, but, like, you go to, like, full cult mode when you're the same as everybody else.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think even growing up, I. I actually was kind of that cult mindset, thinking that I'm trying to become a specific thing here.

But the conversation I have with my son is, is that if God wanted us all to become a simple, the same thing, we would have lots of templates to follow.

There's a lot of.

There's no shortage of good people out there that would just show us the actual template that God wants.

But what we find is, is that people have different Interests.

And they have different skill sets, and they have different natural inclinations, and.

And some of those inclinations are bad, by the way.

I don't think I need to list off some of the different.

You already mentioned schizophrenia, for example.

But, like, we could talk about, like, real, like, problems.

Maybe I use a clip.

Something benign.

But someone who is inclined to steal all the time, we call them a kleptomaniac.

That's an inclination that needs to be resolved.

That's.

That's not.

That's doing damage.

But someone whose inclination to do art, Right.

That's not kind of my thing.

But I have a daughter, and I know you like.

Your inclination to art is why I like going to places that are beautiful, because people are inclined that way.

I'm inclined to tear stuff apart until it doesn't make any sense.

Maybe there's something good in there, too.

All I'm saying is this conversation I had with my son was that he says, dad, I feel like I'm just a constant disappointment because I reflect on you and Mom.

You're great parents, but I just cannot measure up.

How old is this kid?

Almost 18.

He's almost 18.

You have raised a good boy.

A good boy.

Yeah, he is a good boy.

And he's gonna be a great man.

I can just tell by that one how much self awareness and humility and just like, yeah.

Oh, that makes my heart love, love.

The heck out of that kid.

But.

But, you know, so you can.

You can sense the discussion needs to be had of, like, son, the disappointment is when you feel like you have to become someone behind my back.

That's where my disappointment comes.

It's when I feel like you're sneaking or hiding or whatever, especially who it is that you're trying to become.

Now, do you do things.

Do you have inclinations that are not taking you where you want to go?

Yeah.

And as your dad, I'm only going to be living with you for a while longer, you know?

And my hope is you will spread your wings and fly.

And I know it's a hard world right now to get out and do that financially, and you know all that.

But listen, buddy, you're different.

God made you that way.

I have to respect that.

I do respect that.

Can I just say something?

You remind me you've probably.

Have you ever seen the show Modern Family?

Because I think I've seen, like, four episodes.

You might be the Phil Dunphy of Modern Family because he and his dad have such a. I would call it a, like, very.

What is that word?

I'm thinking of.

It's just such a pure relationship.

And then he's trying to have that same thing with his son of like, just.

He's so optimistic and just, just really open.

That's my, like, light show to keep my head from exploding.

And I've been watching that lately.

And.

And you are definitely the Phil Dunph of this world.

And that's a compliment from me.

I was just gonna say, I think, I think I'm gonna take that as a compliment.

You should.

Yes.

Sounds wonderful.

But I think one of the things that you talked about, you know, we're talking about like these, these things.

Like, I think of wisdom as something within this conversation.

We start with no wisdom.

We don't have life experience.

We've.

We're taught values by our family, whether they're good or bad, and that's what we start with.

And then as we evolve because of all the fine print, you know, we have to make exceptions to.

We have to start to like, really think about, did I learn the right things?

Is this what I actually believe?

And then we have experiences and we disappoint or we make mistakes and eventually that leads to wisdom.

I don't know when, at what point we actually gain the wisdom.

Like, is that like at age 40, suddenly you have wisdom?

I bet you 60 year olds would say no.

Yeah, I, I'm ready to agree with that.

Right?

Yeah.

But when I was 20, I thought I already had it.

And then when I was 30, I thought I already had it.

And then I was 40, I thought I already.

You know what I mean?

And the same in business, like, we think we know everything.

At year five, I know I did.

And then the year 10 people are like, laughing at the.

The year five people thinking, oh, what you don't know?

And then the same for year 15 and 20, you know what I'm saying?

Like, that is just the evolution of us as humans is.

Yeah.

Well, let's circle back a little bit here.

I think we're sneaking up on some pretty big gold, to be honest with you.

Is it me or is it God?

And the latest example I just shared was my son saying, I feel like I'm a constant disappointment because I'm naturally disposed to different things, or I struggle with things that you and mom don't struggle with, or that I think that God's got me frustrated, that I've asked for repentance a hundred times, and.

And I just keep making the same dumb mistakes over and over again.

Okay, so what does that mean for.

Is it Me or is it God?

If I'm making a business decision or family decision and I feel inspiration, how do you know where that source is coming from?

Yeah, how do you know?

How do you know, Kurt?

Well, if I was following just what the scriptures say, and I say just what the scriptures say, I promise you could find contradictions in mind.

But in Galatians, it tells us that anything that is good or the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, and goodness.

So the fruits of God, you know, the way I would know is that if it comes through gentleness, goodness, faith, and long suffering, and all that long.

Suffering seems out of sync with the rest of that.

On a side note, I'll just say, but go well.

Yeah, well, I think I always interpret that to if it.

If it is that grit, Well, I.

Actually take it like, it won't go away.

It's.

This is.

It's.

It's here for the long run.

Like, you keep having this thought that just.

You just can't shake it.

That's kind of how I've always put it.

But that all said, I don't know if I actually believe that anymore.

I think that now I am of the opinion that when God is speaking to me, it will often be either something that I'm super enthusiastic about, whether he made me that way or not and I'm good, or it will be something that is an inconvenient but unmistakable truth.

I'll give you an example, because I'm having a hard time verbalizing it, so I did not want to.

Actually, I don't want to share that example.

Let me.

Okay, I'll use my crisis of faith so as an example.

One of the things that is very inconvenient is for me to be a member of a church and go to that church and not know if I agree with anything or a lot of the things that are being discussed on any given Sunday.

That's really hard.

And you struggle with it, and you struggle with it, and you pray about it and you wrestle with it, but the whole time you're keeping it secret because you're afraid that someone might find out that you're a non believer, and then one day this inconvenient truth rears its head in a way that's like, what if you have been digesting this wrong the whole time and now you're being a fake person?

Like, you're.

You're not authentic.

Oh, you know, what am I gonna do about it?

Now I know that I'm not alone in This, I know that probably a lot of our listeners, this is probably resonating because I think it's just part of the maturing process and took me a long time to mature the human experience.

Yeah, yeah.

But for me it's when you say I am getting ready to do something very inconvenient.

But.

And I don't want to do this, but I know it's the right thing to do.

Not right like it's prescribed in the scriptures as right and wrong.

It's right because this is what God wants.

Good for me.

And I'm going to do something that's good for me, but I'm also going to do something that's hard for me.

Is it your gut?

Is it a gut plus the scripture?

I think that the gut, the gut for me is my sort of intuition.

I would normally say, no, that's not from God, that's just your now in my faith.

In my faith, once you're baptized, you're given the gift of the Holy Ghost in your confirmation.

And many people would tell you that your gut is that Holy Ghost.

That constant companionship.

We would say the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.

I actually, I think that that takes away any opportunity for you to have intuition personally.

So if the Holy Ghost is that involved in my life.

Thank you Holy Ghost.

That is very nice of you.

Well, a lot of non religious people also have that intuition.

Yeah.

And we would call those people having the light of Christ within them.

They just don't experience it to the degree that I do.

Oh, you are a vessel of light.

Well and again that goes back to our whole conversation of like see how we just gave God like the right pass.

Free pass.

Yeah.

Yes.

So I, I have sort of moved over to my gut.

Is my intuition that go back to long suffering?

Because I think that was kind of the word that maybe stuck out most of the fruits of the spirit that I was talking about.

I think that when God is speaking to me and I'm receiving an actual thing, it's usually it's that, it's that feeling of you don't want to jump off the cliff.

If you've ever been cliff jumping.

I'm sorry, I have to use this because this is the.

I did one.

Like it's probably not a huge cliff, but it was a pretty, it was a cliff.

Doesn't matter.

It's that feeling right there when you're standing at the edge and you stomach, you look down, you go, gosh, it didn't look nearly as high from down below.

Then you so, so you kind of go through this progression of that didn't look so high.

Now this looks really high, impossibly high.

Then your stomach falls down to your feet.

And then you go, I'm not gonna do this.

And then there is something that says, it's worth it.

The risk is worth the reward.

The people I'm gonna impress are worth the reward.

The whatever it is, I'm gonna do this.

And it's the point where you take a couple steps back or you begin the jump and there is no turning back.

You've.

You've pushed yourself to this particular point.

What was that, what was it that risked?

The broken neck or the big slap in the water in your arm or the water being too shallow and being paralyzed the rest of your life?

There was, you know, all these things at risk.

But you want to make a splash in the water.

That's worth that risk.

It's to me, it's the thing in life that says, I wouldn't do this but for blank.

That's not how I experience it with so many people though I actually could agree with that.

I think when it's something I don't want to do and I still know that it's the right thing to do, I could totally agree with you because there's reasons to not do it.

And in those times, the thing that bugs me about other people is that's when they would say, like, I don't think God wants this to happen.

And it's really.

They don't want to do the thing or they don't want to be uncomfortable or they don't want to have to take a stand.

Yeah.

And so maybe they just are going to be meek and stand, like, this isn't my thing.

And that's kind of what bugs me.

And it makes it.

If nobody had ever said this to me, if I had not experienced it and continue to experience it so much in my life of hearing people just blanket statement like, well, God just wanted, you know, God wanted this for me.

God wanted me to have a million dollars.

God wanted me to like have all my kids be perfect and go to the right schools and do all this.

I know I'm giving examples that sound petty but.

And oddly specific and very specific.

Yes.

But I think what it is, is like if that had never happened, I wish I didn't have the cynicism and that my head didn't go to those places because it would make decision making so much easier for me.

I have to go to like a 50 step process to get through the cynicism of all of other people's stuff that makes me go, oh, my gosh, why.

Why are they just giving themselves a free pass by saying God does or doesn't.

Anyway, that's kind of my wish.

So valuable.

I'm looking back on my faith journey when there was a few things that rocked me.

Wow, Kurt, how.

What are the odds that you were lucky to be born into the religion?

That you were.

How lucky were you that you were born to the state that had the best football team?

And also that your prayers are the ones that God's listening to And.

And in America and in America, the right country.

America.

Yeah, America.

All of these things start to add up, and you start to see.

And then you see people weaponize it.

And I think that's kind of what you're getting at, is.

It is.

Yeah.

Big or small, I'm weaponizing that I was born in America and you weren't.

You need to listen to me.

I'm.

I'm the one that was the blessed one.

I'm the one of the religion.

I'm the one that received the prayer answer, you know, because I'm faithful.

You know, these can all be weaponized and really do damage to other people.

Yes.

Because of.

Probably.

Well, maybe it is faith.

But no, no.

It's been in business, even in business that is weaponized.

And it makes people feel.

People named Melody Edwards feel really bad.

Well, and it.

So let me point out something about the Bible again.

This is going to make people possibly think that Kirk Kempton is not going to be a good source of spiritual.

Advice, but nobody would think that.

Well, except for some people.

Yeah.

What I'm about to say is going to be very controversial.

When people say, I have faith in this infallible book, the Bible, I don't think they realize that.

They're saying, I have faith that the people who wrote these individual books without talking to each other, I have faith in them to have written God's word.

But not just that.

I have faith in the people who compiled all of those books, put them in the order that they're in, bound them, canonized them, translated them, used them to control countries, entire civilizations being controlled by illiterate people, having this read to them and told, interpreted for them, and so on and so forth, the creeds that have come out of them, out of these books.

You know, when you say it's the infallible word of God, I just want to be clear.

You're not just having faith in God, you're Having faith in these people, humans, translators, people, you know, the prophets themselves, the whatever.

I think a lot of people don't even know how long after Jesus was dead, before the gospels were written, these words of God that we memorize word for word.

Whichever translation you're using, memorize them word for word.

Like, this is the infallible word of God.

I can't remember what I said yesterday, but 80 years later, we're going to write a translation of a gospel, and.

And people are going to treat it as if it was written with a voice recorder, verbatim by God himself and delivered and translated by God himself.

It's a very dangerous place to live.

And that goes back to this idea.

Is, is it me or is it God?

Is it the translator?

Is it God?

Is it the business partner, or is it God?

Is it the competitor, or is it God?

Is this dream me or God?

Like, we can.

We can play this game all day long.

Is it God or is it you?

Is it God or is it them?

And I think at the end of the day, I. I've learned that God doesn't actually.

I. Yeah, we don't have to have the answers.

Also, you took the words out of my mouth because everything you just said is exactly what I feel and think.

And I wish.

Yeah, no, I wish people would acknowledge that they understand that and not simplify it, because then I could have more faith in people.

Also, I wonder if God expects us to just play the game of hide and seek for him.

Are we looking for him?

Are we going to weaponize him?

Are we going to use him to our advantage in a selfish way?

Or are we going to use him to our advantage in a comforting and peaceful and principled way?

And I look at where you're at in your journey right now, Melody, and I remember being so uncertain, and I started this podcast saying how certain I am.

And I good.

It felt good because I was certain the whole time I was a little child.

And then I got to this point where I was so uncertain, and now I'm back to certainty.

And it's on this.

On this topic that the God exists.

Yeah, but there's so much I'm so uncertain about.

But I think that the certainty that there's a God out there that wants me to find out who I am and to make myself the best version of who I can be, it really excites me to expand my reach through my business, to expand my love through a marriage, to expand my teaching through my children.

Actually, a lot more than teaching.

Children are like, the whole gamut.

Right.

Like, there's so much combination of love and teaching and pain and suffering and all the other stuff.

But that refining process, we talk about the refiner's fire, and everybody talks about refinement.

Like, it's for gold and silver.

But you know what?

There's refinement for lithium if we're going to use it for lithium ion batteries, there's a refinement process for salt, there's a refinement process for hydrogen.

Like every element, we are individualized.

And I think God loves and respects that.

And for some reason, he is afraid of us becoming one big homogenized, templated group of people.

And that excites me now.

That really does.

Honestly, I could get on board with that.

I am on board with that.

I will say to you that I can believe in that.

And also, it does not resolve my inner conflicts because I still have to feel the feeling.

I'm a feelings person.

But I think that's a really lovely way to think about it and to view it.

And also because you're leaving so much open, like, you are very clear that I do believe, but I don't know everything.

Like, you're not.

You don't know all the things.

Nobody does.

So it's a journey.

When I was 19 years old, I knew everything.

Right.

And now you're laughing at the 19.

No, you're.

You're.

You're, like, patting him on the head.

It's adorable.

That's adorable.

I don't even know if we got to every part of this that I would have wanted to, but I feel really good about what we were talking, you know, about what we did today.

And also, we're never going to come to the end of a podcast, I think, and be like, and now we know the answers.

Yeah, but I love how he kind of sneak.

Snick up on, snuck up, snuck up on the answer.

I like that we were able to circle around some ideas.

And here's one of the thoughts that I've had since kind of coming to the end of this.

Yeah, people are going to interpret themselves as God, and they might even throw it in my face and expect me to buy into it with them.

But I think I have enough grace inside of me to say that God is speaking to me, and I can mishear him.

But that's for me.

That's for me and for those for whom I have.

Stewardship is the religious word.

But I'm referring to.

As a business leader, I'm going to make calls that affect other People as a dad, as a husband, I'm going to make calls that affect other people, and I'm going to do the best I can, including receiving those revelatory experiences through feeling of the spirit or anything like that.

But the moment I put my revelatory experience on people who are outside of my stewardship, as you talked, I feel like that's when it becomes a weapon, and that's when I am not pleasing God.

When you say stewardship, you mean people that you're leading essentially, or in some sort of capacity?

Not leading, but like, I could be.

It kind of is that.

But like, the word stewardship has to.

Be, I think the word in this.

Particular case, except for people who don't know what that means.

Yeah.

So stewardship meaning, like, I have responsibility to them, for them.

Right.

Like they are entrusting me with a responsibility that affects them in some capacity.

Right.

And some people don't have a choice.

They're kids, like, they were born into it, and I have that stewardship.

Some people have a choice.

They could work for me or they could not work for me.

And that's.

That's totally cool.

And then other people are like, it's tight.

Like, I married you and I could divorce you.

But, like, you know, so stewardship has, like these.

This crazy different, like, elastic, you know, whatever.

But all of it matters because when people trust you that way, you got to take it seriously.

And that's where I feel like that maybe you're not going to get certainty that it comes from God, but, like, that confidence that it does.

But I just think that if you have confidence that you're receiving revelation for people that you do not have stewardship for and that they have to buy into the thing that was for God for them at that point, there's a very high probability that you are.

I would.

In my experience, you're using it as a weapon.

You're using it as a manipulation tool.

If someone came to me as a.

A business colleague outside and said, God wants me to do this and not have to mow over you, I would say, well, he didn't give me that answer.

I can see clearly how this answer would be a great answer for you to get if I was you.

But that's for you, that's for you.

If, and if.

And if you're being true to something that you think is true to you, that's fine.

But you'll have to excuse me for the fact that I have not received the answer.

And I look down on this decision that you've made that's negatively impacted me.

Now, am I going to sit here and judge you forever and am I going to stop doing anything that I can progress so that I can really kick the pricks and be upset at how frustrating life is and that life's not fair and I'm a victim, blah, blah, blah?

Well, I don't think that's what God wants for me.

So, no, I'm not going to do that.

But I am going to say you'll have to excuse me if I don't stamp that with God's approval on my side.

Right.

So what do you think in terms of any sort of resolution on the idea of is it God or is it you?

What do you accept as from God and what do you accept as?

I will not allow the stamp of God on that.

What I re.

I really like everything you said because whether I am thinking of it from my God perspective or a secular perspective, it actually aligns with my values.

And I do think.

I don't know that it resolves it for me because I can know something and then still experience in the world.

I'm not strong enough yet, Kurt, to just, like, be so resolved in my beliefs.

And just when somebody says something to me that, you know, I think they might be, you know, using that as an excuse, I'm not strong enough to not take it as a melody thing.

Still, I have to learn that I have a lot of growth to do in this area.

Some would call it in the leadership business world, which would drive my husband crazy.

Extreme ownership, I have that.

But I think really, it's like, I. I don't know how to trust myself.

I will always look at myself first.

Is like, am I the person who is wrong on this?

Or maybe God did tell somebody to do this thing and I just need to go, you know.

But I know in my heart and in my gut and in my.

The Holy Ghost place, what's really.

What's really going on.

And so I have to learn and continue to learn how to be more confident in that.

I really like your insights on this because it's actually helpful to me to understand a different perspective.

Well, I think that you have a lot of emotional intelligence just based on just what you like.

Literally, I could cut that out.

And people be like, wow, that's a really emotionally intelligent person.

And there's also.

You just recognize that there's an emotional maturing process going on, or spirit maybe, maybe better said spiritual maturing.

But either way, it brings me joy to hear that this is something that you still wrestle with, because like any.

You know, they say that your marriage is over when you're done fighting, right?

When it's just.

You're not even worth the fight.

And I feel like that for me, as someone who's moved through.

And I'm not saying I'll never be back to the pain process, but who's moved through that painful struggle with God, it's worth the fight.

It's worth it.

And, you know, I'd love to see that that's still alive inside of you, because it's.

You know, I don't know what conclusions you're going to come to.

And honestly, that's been the kind of the coolest part of my transformation, is that I have no desire to.

I think I'd love to influence you, but I don't want to be responsible for you.

There was a time when I felt like I need to help everybody find the truth that I have, but I don't feel that responsibility anymore.

I hope that the goodness that I have is somehow influential, but I would hate it.

I would hate it if you came to a conclusion and said, I respect Kurt.

So I just gonna.

I'm gonna take what he got.

Oh, gross.

That's nasty.

You know, this is the reason why I can do a podcast with you, though, is because I know you're not trying to push it on me, and I have such a reflex.

What is that word?

Like, if somebody tries to put something on me, their belief system I will reject.

But I love it when that's an entrepreneurship.

Don't tell me what to do.

It is totally.

It's my whole spirit.

But I love that these are the conversations I wish I could have had all of these years that I've been in pain and trying to figure it out on my own and finding you in my journey, and really, I've always, you know, respected you, of course, but being able to have this conversation, I've had it with other people, but it's very few people that I trust to hold space for my potential sin.

And, you know, whatever it may be, you know, there's very few people.

And I will say, interestingly, a lot of the people that I found are.

Have come from my business world, and I think it's very interesting.

Well, God puts people in our path in so many different ways.

You just did it, Kurt.

Well, I'm going to say this.

If God is love, which is a direct quote from the Bible, you sure have a capacity for love that would fly in the face of anything that God's you have enough capacity for love that it would really make it difficult for me to believe that whatever conclusion you come to is not the conclusion that God wants you to come to.

I feel like you just gave me a free pass.

Yeah, I did.

I did.

Thank you.

But here's.

Here's actually, I really.

I trust you.

I trust that your path is going fine.

You know, you talked about cynicism.

Yeah.

And, you know, cynicism is an interesting word because it does sort of correlate to the negative and yucky side of things.

You say, oh, maybe that's opposed to love, but I don't know.

I think that your capacity to love balanced with your cynicism will probably make your road a little longer.

But isn't.

Is it okay to have joy in that journey?

Like, can't that be okay?

I'll think about that this week, and I'll let you know next week.

Okay, cool.

Thank you, Kurt.

Thank you, Melanie.

It's always a pleasure.

I cannot wait for our next discussion where we will discuss all of the spiritual gifts that we have.

No, I. I love these conversations so much.

It is business and spiritual therapy.

So thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

It.