The First Rung

Leonard Avery did everything right: he studied, he worked, he paid his taxes, he stayed out of trouble. And one morning he found the gate of his company chained shut with a brand-new padlock.

At thirty, with two kids and seventy-seven days of money in the bank, Leonard discovers that losing his job was only the first bite. More are coming: the one that arrives disguised as a blessed investment, the one that sits down at his table wearing the face of family, the one that wakes him at three in the morning. Until an old professor stops him in a bank line and reminds him of a forgotten book, a board of ten squares, and a first move that isn't on any list: surrender.

The First Rung is a novel about rebuilding a life from the floor. Through Leonard's story — his temptations, his marriage, his nights of fear and his small victories — it dramatizes the five Inflows and the five Outflows from the book God Desires Your Prosperity: life understood as a business, the board as its balance sheet, and God as the majority Partner who already put up the capital.

It isn't a sermon and it isn't a manual. It's the story of an ordinary man learning, one move at a time, that prosperity isn't luck: it's preparation meeting opportunity… and a Partner who never fails to open the door.

A novel for anyone who ever felt the game was rigged — and needs reminding that it's still their turn to move.