Amdrei Bitov, a Russian novelist, grew up under the atheistic Communist regime. But God got his attention one dreary day. He recalls, “In my twenty-seventh year, while riding the metro in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) I was overcome with a despair so great that life seemed to stop at once, preempting the future entirely, let alone any meaning. Suddenly, all by itself, a phrase appeared: Without God life makes no sense. Repeating it in astonishment, I rode the phrase up like a moving staircase, got out of the metro and walked into God’s light.” (1)

(1) Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2002, pg. 21.