The Benefits of Braving a Cold Shower

This summer I took a cold shower, and you should do the same.

As I flew over the Pacific Ocean and headed to a country I knew little about, I realized what the decisions I made had manifested. That is, discomfort in the face of the unknown.

After two weeks in Central Asia, it was beginning to feel like the norm to wake up to temperature extremes, a half-flooded room and yet no water to take a shower.

I would stumble outside in the cold mornings to the trough where the horses would greet me, and there I would wash up before teaching English to 16 middle schoolers in a dilapidated former-Soviet school. Then I would stand for four hours in a freezing closet, listening to my students cough while trying to maintain their attention.

This, I would call a cold shower: a passing sting to a disappearing part of yourself. The small suffering I have described is merely a cold shower that I took this summer. The momentary shivering is an opportunity to spend time in prayer and put faith into action by exercising self-sacrifice and refocusing our attention on Jesus. We are told to take up our crosses (Luke 9:23).

We are called to be bold servants of Christ (Acts 4:29). Sometimes this means confronting a pharaoh, or sometimes it means leaving your job and everything you know, but no matter the scenario, it means stepping out of comfort. It means accepting the shock of cold water on your skin.

By my third week in Asia, my second group of students had educated me on the customs of the area, which included accounts of “the spirits of the high hills,” milk offerings and the shamans who would demand alcohol or opium from all who ventured to the hills. Because my students shared this with me, I was able to share my story as well without direct mention of the Father who leads me. This was also when I met a student named John.

After dozens of questions about America, my eyes and my skin, John finally asked me about why I traveled to such a remote part of Asia just to teach. I shared my faith with him as other students began to gather. The next day, more students asked about my faith, and the next day even more. The parables I used to teach them were becoming more explicit, yet quieter, as I never knew who stood behind the classroom door.

In turn, my faith grew stronger. And although the teaching became smoother, I felt steadily worse physically. Whether from food poisoning, the general dysentery of the location or a disturbing bug bite from one of the many spider nests in my room, I became too sick to teach for two days. This was the coldest shower of all.

God brought me to an uncomfortable place — he allowed me to share his character, and then he took me out of my place and allowed me to be ill just as I began to get across to my students. During my petty spell of feeling as if I faced injustice, I was reminded of how Jonah felt after God led him to Nineveh.

He sat in a barren wilderness, waiting for God to destroy the city that he had just witnessed to. In the scorching heat, the Lord appointed a plant to grow and give Jonah shade. Jonah thanked God for his mercy. The next day, God appointed a worm to destroy the plant, and so Jonah once again mourned his life in the heat.

The Lord responded by saying, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (Jonah 4:10-11).

I too, having no part in my students’ reception of the gospel, became conflicted when the reward God gave me for following him was seemingly taken away. But who am I to object when the Lord seizes what is his to begin with? I am his. I am not my own.

So, in view of the graciousness God has shown, it is only fitting for all who follow him to accept the calling and the trials he has for us. It is only fitting to bear our crosses and seek the discomfort of a cold shower.

Kilker is the opinion editor for the Liberty Champion.