David Harper spent 50 years as a sceptic. A familiar face from Bargain Hunt and Antiques Roadshow, he had explored eastern religions and nature worship, and by his own account had chased success only to find it did not satisfy. "TV, fame and success couldn't satisfy me," he said, "but falling in love with God changed everything."
The turn began with his adult daughter. She had been living with severe depression that medical treatment could not lift. Then she found Jesus. Over 15 months, David watched her become "a deeply joyful person." He could not explain it away.
At Christmas 2024, moved by what he had seen in her, he set out to investigate Christianity the way he investigated anything, thoroughly. For 11 months he examined the origins of the universe and the evidence for the resurrection. "It doesn't make any logical sense for nothing to create everything," he concluded.
Then the reasoning became something more. While watching Professor John Lennox describe a depressed student who found joy in Jesus, the same joy he had seen in his own daughter, David broke. "That hit me so hard that I broke down," he said. "This information in my head fell into my heart, and I fell in love with God. It was dramatic beyond description."
The change reached into ordinary life. "I feel now that I don't work for myself," he said. "I work for Jesus." Looking back, David puts it plainly. "There is something in life that is plain to see once you remove the blindfold."
