#072: Get Your Suit Dirty ⛑️
He ran into the tower when everyone else ran out. What happened next is a theology lesson nobody taught in seminary.
Welcome, Family
Two days ago marked 25 years since Darren Kinder was a young Secret Service agent who finished his morning workout, put on his suit, and walked outside to find a plane had just struck the World Trade Center.
He ran toward it.
He climbed the stairwell of Tower 1 while it was still standing. He rendered aid to a woman whose skin was coming off her fingertips from burning jet fuel. He commandeered a fire truck and fought fires for an hour. And then, amid the smoke and debris at the intersection of Church and Vesey Street, he took a knee and felt a hand on his shoulder and heard three words: “I am with you.”
The next morning he made a pledge. He would spend the rest of his life getting his suit dirty in the name of Jesus.
That pledge became a book. And it became, for us, the most vivid picture of James 1 we have ever seen in a real human life.
The Suit You Were Never Meant to Keep Clean
Most believers treat faith like their best outfit. Worn carefully. Protected from the elements. Kept presentable for the right occasions.
James 1 has a different picture entirely.
“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”
James 1:2-3 (KJV)
Count it all joy. Not some joy. Not eventual joy. All joy. Now. In the middle of the fire. Before the rescue. Before the outcome is clear.
That is not a command to pretend the fire isn’t hot. It is an instruction to assign the correct meaning to it while it is burning. The word “count” is a perspective technology. It is the intentional decision to view your trial from God’s angle rather than your own.
Darren Kinder didn’t know how September 11th would end when he climbed that stairwell. He didn’t have the outcome in hand before he walked into the building. He had three things: his identity, his assignment, and a God who promised to be present in the fire.
That was enough to move.
42 Stops Between Egypt and the Promise
Here is the detail that changes everything about how you see your current trial.
Israel did not take a direct route from Egypt to the Promised Land. They made 42 encampments. Numbers 33 lists every single one. Forty-two stops, forty-two seasons of waiting, forty-two moments that probably felt like detours — and every single one was designed.
The number 42 carries significant biblical weight. It marks the 42 generations from Abraham to Christ. It defines the 42 months of the Great Tribulation. And it frames the 42 stops between bondage and promise.
The pattern is consistent: 42 is the number of trials that are not accidents.
“God is so sovereign there is not one maverick molecule in the entire universe that is not under His control.”
Whatever stop you are currently on — the job loss, the diagnosis, the relationship that broke, the dream that hasn’t moved — it has a number. It is on the map. God did not look down and say “uh-oh.” He has been here the whole time, and He knows exactly which encampment you are in and precisely how many are left.
Your trial is not a detour. It is a stop on a route that was always leading somewhere.
The Refiner Isn’t Done Until He Sees Himself
The metallurgical image in scripture is one of the most honest pictures of what God is doing in your suffering.
Silver is refined by fire. The metal is placed in a furnace until it liquefies. The heat forces every hidden imperfection to the surface — the dross, the corruption, everything that was invisible when the metal was solid. The refiner skims it off. Then does it again. Seven times. The number of completion.
The process ends when the refiner looks into the liquid metal and sees his own perfect reflection staring back.
That is the goal of your trial.
Not just survival. Not just endurance. Reflection. The fire is doing something to you that comfort was never capable of doing. It is surfacing everything in you that does not look like Christ and removing it, layer by layer, until what remains reflects the image of the One who put you in the furnace.
Joseph understood this. His path went down before it went up. Pit to slavery to prison to palace. Every stop was curriculum. Every trial provided the specific skill set the palace required. His father’s pampering could never have prepared him for Prime Minister. The pit did.
“What you meant for evil, God meant for good.”
Genesis 50:20 (KJV)
That is the perspective that only comes from surviving the encampments.
The Technology Jesus Used on the Cross
The final piece of the framework is the most practical.
Hebrews 12 tells us that Jesus endured the cross by looking past it. He despised the shame. He was not pretending it wasn’t painful or brutal. He knew exactly what the cross was. And He endured it because of the joy set before Him.
“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Hebrews 12:2 (KJV)
Replace the anxious apprehension of the outcome you don’t want with the joyful anticipation of the outcome God already has ready.
Not denial. Not toxic positivity. A deliberate, faith-informed shift of focus from what this trial could cost you to what God has already prepared on the other side of it.
Darren Kinder knelt at the intersection of Church and Vesey Street with fire around him and felt a hand on his shoulder. He was not pretending the destruction wasn’t real. He was choosing to receive the presence of God in the middle of it. And that presence became the foundation for a twenty-five year ministry of getting his suit dirty in the name of Jesus.
The trial is where God gets you ready for what He already has ready for you.
Get your suit dirty.
🙏 Prayer Corner
“Father, we confess that we have been trying to keep our suits clean.
We have avoided the fire, protected our comfort, and called it wisdom. We have watched others run into the stairwell and called it admirable from a safe distance.
Forgive us. You never promised a clean suit. You promised a present hand. You never promised to remove the fire. You promised to be in it with us.
Give us the identity that holds under pressure. Give us the perspective to count it joy before the outcome is visible. Give us the patience to stay in the furnace until You see Your reflection.
We choose to get our suits dirty in the name of Jesus.
Amen.”
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In His Love,
Ravi Patel & Chriss Mogaka
Mogaka Events Ministry
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