Ashes to Artisan: Creative Chronicles IX — Walking With What God Has Already Placed in Motion

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan
There is something that has shifted since that moment outside the hospital.
Not dramatically.
Not in a way that would be obvious to anyone looking from the outside.
But internally… something has settled.
In my last reflection, I found myself standing in that quiet realization:
God is leading me somewhere.
And for a moment, that thought carried a kind of weight.
Not pressure
but awareness.
Because once you recognize that God is leading you, a new question begins to form:
What does it mean to actually walk with that?
Not think about it.
Not write about it.
Not wait for clarity.
But walk.
I’ve noticed something about myself.
When I sense that God is doing something, my instinct is to try and understand it fully.
To map it out.
To define it.
To see where it leads before I take the next step.
But that’s not how this works.
God rarely gives the full picture.
He gives the next step.
And lately, I’ve been learning what it looks like to live inside that reality.
It’s quieter than I expected.
Less dramatic.
Less defined.
But more real.
Because walking with God in this way doesn’t feel like standing on a platform.
It feels like moving through ordinary life with a growing awareness that something deeper is unfolding beneath it.
Joining the incredible ministry team at Kings church Runaway Bay 
Work.
Study.
Responsibility.
Routine.
None of those things have changed.
But the way I move through them has.
There’s a kind of attentiveness now.
A sense that even the small moments matter.
That the spaces between the obvious parts of life are not empty—they’re active.
And maybe that’s where I used to miss it.
I used to look for God in the big moments.
The breakthroughs.
The turning points.
The moments that felt significant enough to point to.
But now
I’m starting to notice Him in the quiet.
In consistency.
In showing up.
In choosing to remain steady when nothing feels particularly extraordinary.
Because maybe the call of God is not just about where you’re going.
Maybe it’s about how you walk while you’re getting there.
That’s something I’m learning slowly.
Because if I’m honest, there is still tension in this space.
There are still questions I don’t have answers to.
Still parts of me that want clarity before commitment.
Still moments where I feel like I’m moving forward without fully understanding what’s ahead.
But something is changing in how I respond to that.
I’m not resisting it the same way.
I’m not trying to force certainty.
I’m learning to trust movement.
And that is different.
Because trust, in this sense, isn’t about feeling confident.
It’s about continuing anyway.
Even when things feel unfinished.
Even when understanding hasn’t caught up yet.
Even when the path ahead still feels partially hidden.
There’s also something else I’ve started to recognize.
God doesn’t waste the ordinary.
The job I’m stepping into.
The study I’m completing.
The responsibilities that fill my days.
None of it feels disconnected anymore.
It feels like it’s all part of something being woven together.
Not perfectly.
Not quickly.
But intentionally.
And that changes how I see things.
Because instead of waiting for something “more spiritual” to happen…
I’m beginning to understand that this is where it’s happening.
Right here.
In the routine.
In the structure.
In the quiet decisions no one sees.
That’s where formation continues.
And maybe that’s why this season feels different from the ones before it.
Before, everything was fire.
Everything was intensity.
Everything was survival.
Now…
it is steadiness.
And I’m realizing something important:
Steadiness is not the absence of growth.
It is the evidence of it.
There is still a long way to go.
I can feel that.
There are still areas of my life being shaped.
Still patterns being worked through.
Still layers being revealed over time.
But for the first time in a long time
I don’t feel like I’m chasing something.
I feel like I’m walking with something.
And that’s a subtle difference.
But it changes everything.
Because chasing creates pressure.
Walking creates presence.
And presence is where God seems to meet me most consistently now.
Not ahead of me.
Not somewhere I have to reach.
But here.
In the step I’m currently taking.
There is a quiet confidence beginning to form in that.
Not loud.
Not certain in every detail.
But grounded.
And maybe that’s what it means to grow into the call of God.
Not arriving fully formed.
Not stepping into something all at once.
But becoming—slowly, as you walk.
And if that’s true
then maybe I don’t need to rush.
Maybe I don’t need to have everything figured out.
Maybe I just need to keep walking.
Because if God is truly leading me somewhere…
then the most important thing I can do right now is not to get ahead of Him—
but to stay with Him.
And that feels like enough.
For now.

About the Author

Dylan Verdun Sullivan is the founder of Refined by Fire Press and an Australian author indexed in the National Library of Australia. As a Level 7 Local Guide with over 1.7 million views on Google Maps, he documents the intersection of faith, recovery, and the light found in ordinary places.

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From the Fire

A Week Ignited: Brotherhood, Openness, and the Quiet Work of God

By Dylan Verdun Sullivan
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