I’m sorry, but baboons are ugly animals. I can’t think of anything very nice about them. I don’t know of anyone who has one for a pet.
But we have lots of them in Africa. Sometimes we would drive to the Game Reserve near Nairobi. Margie was little and of course she would be in the back seat. We would roll our windows up, because when we would stop, baboons would come and swarm all over the car, peering in our windows and through the windshield, hoping we would give them something to eat.
Sometimes they get angry and they are mean, and have been known to bite people.
Margie didn’t like them. She would get down off the back seat and crouch on the floor because she was afraid. I told her, “Margie, they won’t hurt you! You don’t need to be afraid of them.” I meant, of course, that since we have strong glass in our windshield and in our car windows, no baboon can get near her to hurt her.
One Sabbath afternoon long afterward we were all home in Nairobi, relaxing. It was a warm, sunny day. Grace and I were trying to read somewhere in the house, and Margie was in the front yard, swinging in her swing in the big pepper tree.
We didn’t have a fence around our house, just a low hedge of bushes. When we looked up, to our amazement, there was a whole troop of baboons who had come in to the city from the Game Reserve nearby, and they were picking their way through our hedge. Then they all surrounded Margie who was swinging. We watched in horror! Suppose one of them got angry and began to bite her?
Quietly she let her swing go slower and slower until it stopped. We were breathless, watching. We felt that if we rushed out yelling at the baboons, they might panic and then really hurt her. Margie just sat in her swing, watching them with no trace of fear. And they seemed to ignore her, just picked at leaves or things here or there in the yard, hoping for a bug or an insect to eat.
After a few minutes, they quietly ambled off, and left Margie alone.
We rushed out to take her in our arms.
“Margie, weren’t you afraid of those ugly baboons?” I asked.
“No, Daddy; you told me they wouldn’t hurt me!”
Of course, when I said that to her, we were in the car in the Game Reserve. I didn’t intend to tell her that if they surrounded her out in the open, they couldn’t hurt her.
Because she believed what I told her, she was not afraid. Wise people say that if you are in the presence of a wild animal and you are totally not afraid, it is quite likely that it won’t hurt you. If you are afraid, they sense the tension, and that puts them on edge, and then sometimes they can attack you when they are afraid.
This worked out perfectly because Margie trusted her father totally.
The Bible tells us that a time of trouble is coming on the world. But Jesus says, “Do not be worried and upset” (John 14:1). If Satan sees that we are letting ourselves be afraid, he may torment us extra, just to watch us be afraid. Jesus promised us, “I will be with you always” (Matthew 28:20). Believe Him, and you need never be afraid of Satan.