“Mrs. Lang and Her ‘Righteous’ Ruler”

“You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am.” - John 13:13 (NLT)

“If our children were to grow up truthful, they must be taught by those who had a regard for truth, and not just a casual regard, a delicate regard. On this point we were adamant.” - Amy Carmichael

She made me hold my hand open, and then she smacked it with a ruler.

It hurt. And I cried.

Right in front of my first-grade classmates.

“She” was Mrs. Lang, our first-grade teacher at Ider Elementary School. Mrs. Lang was teaching us how to correctly write the alphabet (back when we were graded on handwriting). The rule (the Truth) was, that to properly form the long stem of a letter, one began always at the top and drew a line to the bottom. That was the rule. Period. No argument.

So, when Mrs. Lang witnessed young lad Tinker scribing from bottom to top—against the rule (in violation of the Truth)—she exercised her punitive authority. Never mind that my line was perfectly formed—it was constructed in the wrong direction, and thus had to be corrected with emphasis because Mrs. Lang had keen regard for the truth.

Though I shed a tear that day, I didn’t hold it against Mrs. Lang. She had the courage to discipline me so that I would forever learn and know how to correctly form my letters. And, oh my, how many letters I’ve written since!

And you know what? To this day, I scribe my letters from top to bottom. And do you know why? Because I had a teacher who cared enough to do the hard work of righteous instruction. Mrs. Lang knew that any derivation from the Truth would land me in trouble in the future, so she insisted that I get it right—all the time, every time.

There’s nothing easy about teaching, because there’s nothing easy about learning—if both are done with excellence—and there’s no shortcut to excellence.

I didn’t know it then, but I know it now: Mrs. Lang was emulating Jesus. Jesus was (is) the greatest Teacher ever. Being a master Teacher, He insisted that His pupils, His apprentices, learn from Him how to properly live life from top to bottom! This was (is) entirely possible because right teaching facilitates right learning, and right learning facilitates right living.

Just as I learned from Mrs. Lang the righteous method for forming letters, we can learn from Jesus the righteous method for cultivating a life of Christlikeness, a life that closely resembles His because we possess a high regard for living by the Truth—Truth that we gratefully gather sitting at the feet of our Teacher and Lord.

So, if we learn well how to live and then put that learning into practice, Jesus declares that “God will bless us for doing so” (John 13:17); i.e., our life will be overflowing with the goodness of God—a goodness that we can gladly share everywhere we go.

Thanks, Mrs. Lang, and thanks, Jesus. My life is richer because of your / Your ‘righteous’ teaching.

A fellow beggar along the Way,

Greg