Some people find Jesus through their up-bringing in a church-going household; some are drawn to Jesus by wondering about the meaning of life, the universe and everything; others because of a crisis in their lives. Find out what brought Paul to faith in Jesus Christ at the age of 28 - a faith that has remained with him for over 20 years and eventually led him to turn his back on a career in IT to help ensure a new generation of children learn about Jesus in schools.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s in a 3-bed semi in Didcot with my dad, mum and sister. Our family were not believers – although that didn't save me from being Christened or sent to Sunday school most weeks with one of our neighbours. My father dismissed the church as a corrupt and hypocritical institution peddling fairy stories to the gullible for its own benefit and whose employees were generally on the take or homosexual or both. My mother, influenced largely by the early deaths of her mother (in her 60s) and the good Christian lady who took me to Sunday school (in her early 40s), has never managed to reconcile the suffering she sees in the world with the idea of a loving and powerful God. So, I think it's safe to say, I didn't become a Christian because of family tradition.

After leaving school I embarked on a career in science. Studying for a degree in physics part time and working at Culham for the Atomic Energy Authority throughout the 80s I learnt much about the beauty of the physical laws that describe and determine how our universe operates. I never questioned why they were as they were or thought that they needed a designer, or why the universe existed at all. It's wasn't those questions that led me to God.

By 1989 I was happy in my own home in Grove. I was single but friends, cars, motorbikes and sailing kept me happy. Then I found myself, inexplicably, on a skiing trip surrounded by Christians, some of whom came from Grove. I became friends with them.

I began to read the Bible and meet with these friends to talk about what it said. I began to see the Jesus I now found in the Bible was different from all I remembered from Sunday school. So at Christmas I decided to go to their Church to find out more. Then, just after Easter in 1990, God made me aware that while I thought I was in control of my destiny, I wasn't. I fell in love. I fell in love with somebody who didn't love me. So I prayed – as you do. I can still remember a vivid impression of Jesus saying to me "So, now you understand. You're not really in control. I'm not promising to make this work but follow me. Trust me and you will know what love really is." So I did. I decided to believe – believe what the Bible told me about Jesus.

I can still conceive of a world like ours without a God. It would make it easier to dismiss suffering, poverty and injustice. I would be able to justify pursuing my own success, comfort and happiness over that of others. But I would have to deny that very real and on-going experience of Jesus presence in my life. And I would lose the certainty that I am loved by God even though I fall short of what God wants me to be.

My faith was a gift from God that night.

"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me." Revelation 3:20 (NIV)

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7 (NIV)