If you’re like me, you wish you read God’s Word more. It’s like every time I read it, I am impacted and blessed so much I ask the question, “And why don’t I read this more?” You know what I mean. I feel like my work should be spent for 15 minutes and my reading of the Word for 8 hours (or 10-12) a day, not the reverse like it is. It FEELS like our order is all out of whack. Maybe that’s what heaven will be like, though. Order in whack. Whatever whack is.

So I’m reading the other day and I’m trudging through the Old Testament and I get to Numbers 2. It was AWESOME! Check it out: Numbers 2:2 “The Israelites are to camp around the Tent of Meeting some distance from it, each man under his standard with the banners of his family.” So they’re camping (which is cool enough), and they have family banners with different “standards” for each family. Picture this with me: a ton of families camping out back of our church with each family having made bannerS that say what their family is. If you keep reading this phrase “under his standard” repeats throughout chapter 2. There were different standards & different banners for each family! They were all under the Lord’s Standard, but each was known for and lived for different things. And it was okay.

So I began to think about it. What’s my family’s standard? What bannerS would illustrate who we, the Ehrharts, are. I mean, some people have a picture of who we are, but who are we really? Do we even know who our families are? Do we think on this? We may idealize what we want to be like, but who are we really? 

I know the banner I want to be is that like Solomon describes of the beloved & lover in Song of Songs: love. I want our family to be one who is loving. I want it for my kids. For my wife, for myself & our marriage. I want my kids to know they’re children of the Most High God who loves them immensely. I want them to know they live under God’s Banner & standard of love. 

I encourage you in this month of “love” to talk about your family’s standard. In the midst of the basketball games, school projects, work trips, dinners out, take a night, just one night and sit together with the television off and discuss your standard. Read Numbers 2 together. Buy a sheet and some puff paint and paint your family’s banner together. Hang it in the house so people who come in can see your banner.

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