Quiet Unfiltered Notes: From the Fire

There is something that has been sitting with me for a while now. Not loudly. Not in a way that demands attention. But quietly. Persistently. Like a slow-burning coal that refuses to go out. And the longer I sit with it, the more it begins to press deeper—not just into thought, but into something beneath that. Something that feels like it is asking a question I cannot ignore. Because if a life can be marked by fire then what is that fire for? I find myself thinking about revival . Not as a concept. Not as something distant in history books or reserved for moments we read about with awe. But as something real. Something that touches down into ordinary lives and rearranges everything. Something that does not ask permission before it changes a person. Something that takes what is broken, distracted, or wandering—and brings it back into alignment with God. Revival is not noise. It is not hype. It is not emotion for the sake of emotion. Revival is when the presence of God becomes undeniable...

There are places in the world I have never stepped into. Places I have never walked, never breathed in, never physically stood upon… yet somehow, they feel close to me. Not in a distant, romantic way—but in a way that feels deeply personal, almost as if something within me recognises them before I ever arrive. It’s 2:13am on a Thursday morning as I write this. I should be sleeping. But something in me is awake. Not just physically—but internally. There’s a pull, a quiet stirring that won’t let me switch off. The kind of feeling that sits just beneath the surface and asks to be written, even when your body is tired. I’ve sat quietly and thought about this more than once. How can you feel connected to people you’ve never met? How can your heart move toward nations you’ve never seen with your own eyes? And yet, it does. Nigeria. Uganda. Papua New Guinea. Parts of Africa. Remote villages. Cities full of noise and struggle. Places where life looks different from mine—but where something dee...

My name is Dylan Verdun Sullivan . I was born in the Gold Coast Hospital in 1983. The beginning of my story is not something I remember—but it is something that has shaped everything that followed. I am the youngest of three brothers. There is something about being the youngest that places you in a certain position in life. You watch. You observe. You grow up trying to find your place in a world that already feels established before you even arrive. But my beginning wasn’t simple. I was born with bilateral club feet . I was also born with cranial atresia. Even writing those words now, there is a weight to them—not just medically, but personally. Because those conditions were not just something I “had.” They became part of the way I experienced the world from the very beginning. Hospitals were not unfamiliar places to me. Doctors. Procedures. Operations. These weren’t rare events. They were part of my early life. Before I even had the ability to understand what was happening, my life ha...

As I get some study in before work at woolworths I find myself sitting in a quiet moment. Not rushed. Not distracted. Just present. I’ve got the commentary of the Gospel of John by playing by R.C Sproul   and as I listen on Spotify something begins to settle deeper in me. Not as a new idea. But as a reminder. A necessary reminder. I can’t help but be drawn back to the glory of the cross . And I needed that today. A Truth That Grounds Me There are days where my thoughts feel scattered. Where emotions move quickly. Where my mind runs ahead of itself. And in those moments, I need something that doesn’t move. Something that doesn’t shift based on how I feel. Something that remains. And this morning, that something is the cross. What the Cross Was Historically, the cross was not a symbol of hope. It was not something people looked at with reverence. It was a tool of execution. A method designed for death. But not just death—public, humiliating, degrading death. It was meant to strip ...

There’s a tension I’ve been learning to sit in. Not fix. Not escape. Not rush through. But actually sit in. And if I’m honest, it’s uncomfortable. Because it feels like two realities that shouldn’t coexist… yet somehow they do. On one side, there is trauma . Past wounds. Memories that still carry weight. Patterns that didn’t just disappear when I decided to change. And on the other side, there is something equally real. A fire. A deep, undeniable desire to pursue Jesus . A longing to live differently. To walk in truth. To move forward. And what I’m learning—slowly, sometimes reluctantly—is this: You can live in both. You can hold that tension. The Expectation of Resolution For a long time, I thought it worked differently. I thought healing meant the past would lose its voice completely. That once I stepped fully into faith, into transformation, into pursuing Jesus—everything else would fall away. That the wounds would close. The memories would soften. The patterns would disappear. Cle...

Wow  what a start to the week. I’ve been sitting with Saturday for a couple of days now, letting it settle, letting it breathe, letting it speak in its own way before rushing to put words around it. There are moments in life that are better written immediately, while the emotion is still raw and close to the surface. But there are other moments that need time—time to process, time to reflect, time to understand what was actually taking place beneath what we could see. Saturday felt like one of those moments. Kings Church connect group at Paradise Point . A simple setting on the surface. A lunchtime barbecue. Men gathered. Food cooking. Conversations unfolding. Nothing overly structured. Nothing forced. But what took place in that space carried far more weight than what it looked like from the outside. And I think that’s what has stayed with me the most. Letting the Moment Settle I was going to write on Saturday. I really was. I felt it stirring in me as I left. Tha...

As the weekend begins, I find myself carrying a real sense of excitement heading into today. Not just because it’s a break from the week—but because I get to spend it in a way that actually means something. Today it’s a lunchtime barbecue at Paradise Point with the men’s connect group from Kings Church Runaway Bay , and there’s something about that combination— fire, food, and brotherhood —that just feels right. There’s something grounding about it. Something honest. No stage. No pressure. Just men gathering, sharing space, and doing life together. And for me, that matters more than I probably realised in earlier seasons of my life. Because if I’m honest, there have been many years where I’ve tried to carry things on my own. Thoughts, struggles, questions—things I didn’t always have the language for, or maybe didn’t feel safe enough to bring into the open. But I’m learning that isolation has a way of distorting things. It keeps everything internal. And when everything stays internal,...

I’ve been sitting with something lately that I can’t seem to shake. I was sharing these thoughts with my fiancée Bianca last night  It’s not loud. It’s not dramatic. But it’s persistent. It’s the tension of wanting to be completely on fire for Christ  while still being deeply aware of my own shortcomings. And if I’m honest, that tension has been confronting. Because there are moments where my heart burns with clarity and conviction. Moments where everything feels aligned—where my thoughts, my desires, my purpose all seem to point in one direction. Toward Him. Toward Jesus . Toward a life that reflects something real, something surrendered, something transformed. But then there are other moments. Moments where I’m reminded—very quickly—that I’m still me. Still human. Still flawed. Still carrying things I thought I had already laid down. And that’s where the struggle begins. The Fire That Feels Real There are times where I can’t deny what God has done in my life. It’s not theor...

There’s something I’ve been sitting with lately. Not in a rushed way, not as a passing thought—but something that has stayed with me, and  lingered, and quietly unfolded the more I’ve paid attention to it. and the other night at kings church connect group it was stirred in me once again  Food is powerful. Not just in the obvious sense. Not just because it nourishes the body or fills a need. But because it does something deeper. It unlocks memory . It unlocks moments. It unlocks people. And the more I’ve reflected on this, the more I’ve realised that food doesn’t just bring back memories—it carries something spiritual within it. Something that touches the soul, not just the senses. The Moment Behind the Meal There’s a moment that happens—subtle, almost unnoticed. You take a bite of something. And suddenly, you’re not just tasting it. You’re somewhere else. A different time. A different place. A different version of yourself. You remember who you were with. You remember the co...

As I wrote extensively in my last post my heart for today was to pray and take time to appreciate the work in Refined by Fire Press . I feel to write about what the Lord is putting on my heart for the weekend. Something I have been struggling with—trust in the areas of emotional healing . Anxiety. Depression. Nervous system healing . Negative mental programming . These are not distant concepts to me. They are not topics I can approach from a place of detachment or theory. They are present. They are lived. They are, at times, overwhelming. And yet, they are also the place where something deeper is happening. The Tension I’m Sitting In There is a tension I’ve been feeling lately. On one hand, I can see growth in my life. I can see change. I can see movement forward in ways that I once prayed for. But on the other hand, there are still moments—unexpected, uninvited moments—where my mind returns to old patterns. Old thoughts. Old fears. Old reactions that seem to rise up before I even have...