Christians also face intense persecution in African nations like Nigeria, making the witness of athletes like Rasheedat Ajibade especially powerful. In one Instagram post, the young soccer star shows off a T-shirt with the words “Jesus Revealed, Jesus Glorified, Haleluya.” Another shirt reads simply “Thank You Jesus,” with a reference to the prophet Isaiah. She writes, “Beyond my desires, beyond everything in and around my life, I JUST WANT TO SEE JESUS REVEALED AND GLORIFIED” (caps original).

The International Olympic Committee charter bars athletes from displaying religious symbols of any kind, but that didn’t stop Rayssa Leal from coming up with a bold and ingenious workaround. Just before earning a bronze medal, the Brazilian skateboard prodigy smiled at the camera and sent a message in sign language: “Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.”
Leal went viral at age 7 when she executed a perfect heelflip in a blue princess dress, catching the attention of legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk. She grew up attending a Baptist church, and at age 16, her faith remains strong. Her Instagram is full of Scripture verses. After her win, she told the media that she signs Scripture at every competition. For this medal, her second at the Paris Games, she says, “Once again, thank God.”
It’s been 100 years since Eric Liddell won Olympic gold without compromising his deep Christian convictions—particularly his Sabbatarian convictions about competing on the Lord’s Day. Today, young Christian Olympians like Leal are willing to be similarly bold in an even more hostile and secularized West. And many, perhaps even most of the open believers competing at the Olympics, are non-Western. Many are African and Asian—the fruit of faithful gospel preaching by missionaries like Liddel.
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Beholding the glory of our Lord — in his striking Gospels calmness and his present imperturbable equanimity — we are “transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). We cannot study the real Christ too much. We cannot look to him too often. We cannot meditate on him too much. In coming as near to him as we can, and abiding in him as much as we are able, we will in time learn more of that holy stillness of soul, that godly composure, that glorious equanimity, and a thousand other graces besides.

I love the old word equanimity. It’s almost fallen out of use today. Perhaps that’s because, in part, the reality has become increasingly rare. Equanimity is a term for composure, for emotional calmness and presence of mind, particularly in trying circumstances.
We’re living in times that condition us to overreact and explode, in a society that rewards outrage and outbursts. It’s never been easy for sinners to keep even tempers in trial, but present distresses summon us afresh to learn composure under pressure, how to “hold our peace” when the moment requires it, and give release to emotion in its proper time and place. Our families and churches and communities need leaders who have learned to keep their heads when others are losing theirs, to not lose control in anger or self-pity but keep a sober mind, and be, like our God, “slow to anger” (Exodus 34:6).
We need to bring equanimity back.
Non-Anxious Presence
The road-tested wisdom of Proverbs 16:32 whispers to those with ears to hear,
Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.
Count “he who rules his spirit” as a biblical phrase for equanimity and holy composure. Note well, the wise man neither smites his spirit nor takes orders from it. He neither stuffs his emotions nor lets them play king. Rather, he rules his spirit. He learns how to keep his spirit cool, his temper even, in moments when fools get hot, weak kneed, and their passions carry the day.
This is not stoicism. Christians have long called this “self-control.” We aim not to be men without spirits but those who keep “a cool spirit” under duress, when the immature lose control. We do not discard our emotions (as if we could) or suppress them, but by God’s grace we seek to bring our spirit increasingly under the control of his Spirit.
Holy Calm
Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) commends the “holy calm” of godly strength and praises the Spirit-empowered composure to which God calls his people and provides — and all the more in times volatile and easy agitated.
The strength of the good soldier of Jesus Christ appears in nothing more than in steadfastly maintaining the holy calm, meekness, sweetness, and benevolence of his mind, amidst all the storms, injuries, strange behavior, and surprising acts and events of this evil an unreasonable world. (Religious Affections, 278)
Foreign as “holy calm” and equanimity might seem in our frenetic and furious age, we are well aware of the present challenges to our composure — which Edwards names in language we could hardly update more than two hundred years later: “storms, injuries, strange behavior, and surprising acts and events of this evil and unreasonable world.”
Superlative Meekness
Yet Edwards not only commends “holy calm” in Christ’s soldiers. He presses deeper. He celebrates it in our captain and Lord himself. “In the person of Christ do meet together infinite majesty and transcendent meekness,” he writes, which are “two qualifications that meet together in no other person but Christ.”
Only God has infinite majesty; only in becoming man does Christ have meekness, “a virtue proper only to the creature.” In this meekness, Edwards says, “seems to be signified, a calmness and quietness of spirit, arising from humility in mutable beings that are naturally liable to be put into a ruffle by the assaults of a tempestuous and injurious world. But Christ, being both God and man, hath both infinite majesty and superlative meekness” (“Excellency of Christ”).
Who among us has not felt the temptation “to be put into a ruffle by the assaults” of our lives and age?
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There are, then, several benefits of meditating on death as we age. It brings composure to the mind. It keeps us in reverence of the Lord throughout the day. It helps maintain a clear conscience in our relationship with God and others. It fosters a sense of detachment from worldly pursuits.

Although it’s possible for young people to die early, it’s impossible for the elderly to live long. The visible signs of aging are a clear indication that our end is approaching. There’s no cure for old age. The graves are prepared for us. The natural process of decay will continue to wear down our bodies until they are completely consumed. Death has already begun to affect the senses of older individuals, and it won’t be long before they return to dust.
However, while death is an unwelcome event for those who live comfortable lives, it is a blessed transition for holy elderly men and women. They can look back and see a tempting and troublesome world, but looking forward, they anticipate a state of perfect holiness and happiness that awaits them. The end of their earthly struggles marks the beginning of their heavenly rewards. Just as an apprentice rejoices when their service is about to end, the elderly person can find solace in the approaching end of their earthly journey.
I understand that facing death is unsettling for everyone, but faith becomes especially important and valuable at this stage, and the just may be said to die, as well as to live by his faith.
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