It was great to read that the latest research shows God is a reality for most people worldwide. The ‘Patmos Initiative’ is the result of three years work in which 90,000 people living in 85 countries were questioned in depth about their views on the Bible and faith by Gallup on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society and United Bible Studies.

Project lead Richard Powney summed it up well when he said "The data challenges many prevailing narratives about the decline of religion globally…In five of the seven global contexts we studied, the majority of people still consider religion an important part of their daily lives."

I was particularly intrigued to read that this study has shown broad support for teaching Bible stories to children, with over two thirds (70%) of all respondents globally agreeing that this is ‘a good thing’. I say this because I have spent a little time reflecting on ‘God and Churchill’ again, the first biography I believe to focus on the Christian motivation behind his style, his speeches and his eventual success. It has proved timely reading too, given all the celebrations surrounding the 80th anniversary of VE day.

Churchill clearly believed in ‘divine destiny’ and that his sense of calling and purpose was fuelled by a revelation he was given when he was still a boy of sixteen. “This country will be subjected somehow to a tremendous invasion . . . I shall be in command of the defences of London . . . it will fall to me to save the Capital, to save the Empire” he told a fellow student who shared it in a letter he sent to Churchill’s son Randolph who had been given the responsibility of writing the great man’s biography.

This must have seemed a very unlikely prediction given the fact that Churchill was viewed a failure for much of his life, but his belief in ‘divine destiny’ was so central to his thinking that he was willing to publicly admit that he detected God’s ‘invisible hand’ at work in the struggle against Nazism.

That’s why it should come as no surprise to find that after he made his official broadcast announcing Germany's surrender he went to the House of Commons and following a short address, moved that they should all go St Margaret's Church, Westminster ‘to give humble and reverent thanks to Almighty God’.

Given all this I think we should thank God for the life-shaping influence of his nanny, a lady by the name of Elizabeth Everest. She sat with him for hours reading Bible stories and teaching him to pray.

So, let’s take heart from the findings of the Patmos initiative then. Churchill’s story is a powerful reminder that it is indeed ‘a good thing’ to introduce children to the Bible because we never know just how important that might prove in the years to come.