Hi! What¹s the best thing you think could ever happen to you in life? Win the Lottery? Find the perfect partner? Make it to the top of your profession? There are probably as many answers to that as there are individuals to answer the question.

We¹re all different. But do you know what my answer is? It¹s finding the purpose for your existence - and not only that, but finding that the God who made us is REAL. Not just the figment of a vicar's imagination or a religious idea that someone else made up - but Someone who comes into your life and actually proves himself to be your loving, caring Heavenly Father! I tell you, once you know that for sure - you¹ll never be frightened of anything life has to throw at you again! That¹s not to say that I'm heroic - I'm probably more of a coward than most! But knowing you have the God who created the entire universe with you means you can face the bad times, and trust him to help you through it.

You see, even though I grew up in a Christian family and knew what I was supposed to believe, I've always had this feeling that life was meaningless. You get up in the morning, go to work, come home and repeat the whole thing the next day. And then you get old - and suddenly life is over in a very short time. So what's the point! An atheist will tell you there is no point, so you'd better get used to it - Christians are just people who need a crutch to get through life. But as I grew up I began to question my parents' beliefs, and realised that they believed them not because it was all a crutch - but because they'd experienced something. Something massive and life-changing. They'd actually experienced God for themselves.

My father was supposed to die at 18, due to his heart condition - it grew to twice its normal size under the strain. He was in hospital, watching other people with the same condition die around him. But some Christians at a church prayed for him, and he committed what was left of his life to God. Then they prayed for him to be healed - and he lived on, and on. Until his thirties, when an operation was invented which was supposed to give him an extra ten years of life. He actually lived until he was 57, and in the end it wasn't his heart condition that killed him at all, but a brain haemorrhage!

He grew up to marry and have two kids - all of which he never expected. And he grew also in his relationship with God - making me jealous as an enquiring teenager. Because he had something that I didn't - he knew Jesus Christ personally. Not because he was some super saint. But because he'd simply handed control of his life over to Jesus. And I knew that the reason life for me was meaningless was because I didn't know Jesus myself. Yes, I believed that God existed and that other people had come to know him through Jesus, but I knew I didn't know him myself.

So, at 14 years old, I decided to put God to the test. I asked Jesus to come into my life and make a difference. At first, things didn't seem any different, but then I started to see answers to my prayers. And when I read the Bible, even though I'd read it lots of times as a kid, now God actually spoke to my heart through it. And when I worshipped God, it was no longer just singing songs and hoping he heard, I actually felt his presence with me! And, most of all, I knew that there IS a reason for living - to get to know the God who created us!

He wants everyone to know him. And as for those atheists who look out at the world around them and think there is no purpose in life - how can they possibly see the amazing creation around us and not think there is an amazing Creator behind it all?! It is all far too beautiful and complex to have arrived by chance. It takes more faith to believe that there is no Designer behind the incredible design of life than to believe it's all a big accident. And once you know the Creator for yourself - it's a case of argument over!

If you don't know him, you¹ll never know real peace of heart, and you'll never feel satisfied - however much success and happiness you can find for yourself.

You see, God made us in the beginning to live with him and know him. But human beings decided they could do without him, thanks very much, and selfishness just brought emptiness. There's a big God-shaped hole in our hearts that can only be filled with God. People try to fill the gap with relationships, sex, drugs, fame, wealth or even religions they've made up themselves - but nothing can fill that gap except Jesus. Don't waste your life - there¹s a whole new world out there for you to know, and it begins when we admit we need God.