• How can we as Christians have so much knowledge about what the Bible says, yet still struggle so much to live it out?
• Why do so many young people abandon their faith in their young adult years?
• Why are so many people of all ages deconstructing their faith, and what does that even mean?
• What am I personally missing in my walk?

I’m so thankful that when I ask questions, my Father lovingly provides answers in His timing, at least in part. He continues to do so even through working with this magazine. For example, I received access to a sample of RVL Discipleship: The Curriculum from Focus on the Family. It allowed me to preview two of the lessons—and once again, God reinforced what I believe He’s been teaching me over this past year.

Each lesson of this homeschool curriculum includes a thirty-minute video along with an instructor’s guide (with answers), a student guide and even homework assignments and tests. The two lessons I watched from The Curriculum were so good that, as I said, I want more.

In just the hour of teaching—which is well done and engaging—I was further encouraged on my own personal journey of discipleship. Here are just a few nuggets from the lessons:

• There’s a difference between the western understanding of knowledge and the Hebraic one. We often use the word know to mean intellectual knowledge such as information and facts, but in the Hebrew Scriptures, knowing was also experiential and intimate.
• It’s crucial to understand the entire Bible, both the older and newer testaments, as one story. Actually, we NEED to understand the older testament in order to fully experience the richness of the gospel message.
• When we approach Scripture with curiosity, studying God’s Word becomes an exciting adventure. God has graciously given us tools today that can help us dig deeper in ways that weren’t even possible for most until recent times!
• The concept of believing and doing is intricately linked in Hebrew thought, so when Jesus would say, “Listen!” it was with the idea of believing what He says and acting on it, through His grace.

I loved that the lessons include an application. Since I don’t want to spoil it for you, I’ll just tell you that I will never hear the story of David and Goliath again without thinking about The Stone lesson.

And that’s the real point of this curriculum: guiding your teens on a transformative journey as they learn from and follow Jesus.

Those four questions that I started with… Well, over time I’ve come to realize that it’s the knowing (as understood in Hebraic thought) that makes all the difference. An intimate, experiential relationship with God is not only possible, but His very desire for us. And your teens don’t have to wait until they are in their fifties, like me, to truly understand what it is to be His disciple.