Live Like Kings: Ten Readings

What follows is ten entries from Live Like Kings, Volume One — a devotional I wrote for men who lead. Thirty-one readings, one for every chapter of Proverbs.

I've built and led multimillion-dollar companies, and sold one. I've raised millions of dollars for Kingdom ventures and scaled global ministries. I've served as a founder, a pastor, and an executive, and I've coached some of the most influential leaders in faith and business — in the rooms where the decisions actually get made. I'm good at this work. That's not bragging; it's the reason you'd pick up something like this at all, and you deserve to know it before you give me ten days.

Here's the other half.

I've also watched something I built come apart. I've sat in pitch rooms praying for wisdom while my heart was really just begging for approval. I've been the visionary in the strategy meeting on Tuesday and the man in a hospital gown on Thursday, getting a diagnosis I'd earned one bag of Takis at a time. My first marriage was over in eighteen months, and the warnings were all there before the wedding; I just didn't want to see them. I've been arrogant enough that an employee told me to my face I was intimidating — and I went home, and my wife confirmed it.

I'm telling you both halves up front on purpose.

Most books written by Christian men in business hand you the highlight reel — the exit, the platform, the verse that turned it all around. You finish them impressed and unchanged, because nothing in them cost the author anything to write. This is a field journal. It was written from the mud as often as the mountaintop, and plenty of days that was the same day.

Proverbs is not a collection of nice sayings for nice people. It's a survival guide. Solomon wrote it for sons who were going to lead — and leadership, done long enough, will expose every fear, every shortcut, and every idol you own. Proverbs doesn't flinch from that. Neither will these pages.

So I'm not writing to you from a mountaintop. But I'm not writing from a ditch either. I'm writing from the path — still walking it, with enough behind me to know which parts are worth telling you about.

I've made a lot and lost a lot. Somewhere in the losing, I stopped measuring my life by platform, money, and title, and started measuring it by something steadier — true riches: obedience, legacy, and the voice of God. That reframe is the heartbeat of this book.

Not kings in the worldly sense — arrogant, domineering, self-serving. Kings in the truest sense: men entrusted with influence, responsibility, and eternal significance. Romans 8 says we are not just saved, we are sons; not just believers, we are heirs. The word scion means a descendant of a royal line, entrusted with the family legacy. That is who we are in Christ.

Read the entry. Each pairs a passage from Proverbs with a story from real life and a question worth sitting in. Five to ten minutes.

Then open Proverbs. Read the full chapter the entry is drawn from. The entry is the conversation; the chapter is the Word. Don't skip it — it is the point.

Stay in the Final Reflection. The questions at the end are not a quiz. Carry them into the day.

Then make the move. Every entry ends with one concrete action to take that same day. It's small on purpose. Reflection that never leaves the page is just a nicer kind of avoidance — the move is where the reading either costs you something or doesn't.

We were newly married, new homeowners, and newly naïve about what suburban life would actually be like. We bought a starter home in one of those jammed-together California neighborhoods where your side yard is roughly the width of a Pop-Tart. Still, it was quiet. The neighbors were friendly enough. Our backyard butted up against another yard separated only by a wooden fence and, theoretically, the Holy Spirit.

Then came the mornings. I don’t know if you’ve ever been startled awake by the sound of your soul being yanked out of your body — but that’s what it felt like. A screech. A howl. A war cry from the underworld. It was coming from the backyard next door. At 4:30 in the morning. Repeatedly. Like clockwork. Like a demon with a wristwatch.

At first, I was spiritual about it: “Lord, bless them. Keep them. Make…your face shhhh…SHUT THEM UP IN THE NAME OF ALL THIS LOVE AND HOLY!!! In Jesus’ mighty name, amen.” But after Day 3, I shifted from prayer warrior to investigative journalist. I quietly crept out of bed, stepped onto a chair, and peeked over the fence like a nosy sitcom character. And there it was: a live, strutting, loud, flapping, not-in-a-zoo-or-farm…demon-bird. Rooster. Yes. A rooster. In her backyard. In our HOA-regulated, rooster-restricted residential subdivision. I didn’t know what the protocol was, but I was pretty sure it didn’t involve poultry. And at that hour, I wasn’t in the mood to have a cross-cultural dialogue about zoning ordinances.

So I did what any good Christian would do. I called animal control. No conversation. No warning. No grace. Just a polite, bureaucratic, city-sanctioned hit job. “Good morning. Yes, I’d like to report a rooster.” Animal control showed up. Confirmed the illegality. Removed the bird. Justice was served. My sleep was restored. I felt both vindicated and deeply adult.

Plot twist: turns out I was the villain. It wasn’t even her pet rooster. She had purchased it for a cultural holiday — a tradition that mattered deeply to her and her extended family. It was going to be there for two days. Two. But because I jumped to conclusions and skipped, you know, being an actual neighbor, I single-handedly had it confiscated before the celebration could begin. Where she was supposed to present a rooster, she only had a happy-gram from Animal Control — courtesy of me. You’re welcome. She didn’t just lose a bird. She lost face. She knew it was me. Everyone knew it was me.

I thought I was solving a noise problem. What I actually did was damage a relationship. “Do not be hasty in bringing a matter to court,” Proverbs says. “You might win the fight… and end up being the one shamed.” I didn’t just act fast. I acted alone. No conversation. No curiosity. No effort to understand.

What the rooster taught me: I protected my morning routine when I should have protected her dignity. I reacted quickly when wisdom would have responded slowly. I solved the problem efficiently when I should have strengthened the relationship intentionally. I operated from assumption when I should have led with understanding. I was technically right — and relationally wrong.

Jesus didn’t win us back by filing a complaint from heaven. He crossed the fence. Knocked on the door. Sat at the table. Took on our shame. That’s the model. Not to be the loudest voice in the room, but the nearest presence in the relationship. Not to treat people like problems to be managed, but like neighbors to be loved.

Because in God’s economy, “winning” without love is losing. I can win the case, close the argument, silence the noise — and still end up the fool Proverbs warned about. Better to lose sleep for two nights than to lose a neighbor for a lifetime. Better to be wrong with love than right without it. The rooster’s gone. But the echo of my reaction stayed a lot longer. And it still asks me: am I winning the issue… or am I actually losing my neighbor?