The Danger of the Baobab Tree

In the book The Little Prince, there is a scene in which the narrator discusses the problem of the baobab trees with the little prince. The little prince was from a very small asteroid and there was a great danger of it being destroyed because of baobabs that could grow there. The narrator explained, “On the little prince's planet there were - as on all planets - good plants and bad plants. The good plants come from good seeds, and the bad plants from bad seeds. But the seeds are invisible. They sleep in the secrecy of the ground until one of them decides to wake up. Then it stretches and begins to sprout, quite timidly at first, a charming, harmless little twig reaching toward the sun. If it's a radish seed, or a rosebush seed, you can let it sprout all it likes. But if it's the seed of a bad plant, you must pull the plant up right away, as soon as you can recognize it. As it happens, there were terrible seeds on the little prince's planet... baobab seeds. The planet's soil was infested with them. Now if you attend to a baobab too late, you can never get rid of it again. It overgrows the whole planet. Its roots pierce right through. And if the planet is too small, and if there are too many baobabs, they make it burst into pieces.” And so the little prince had to be vigilant to get rid of the baobabs as soon as they started to grow before they became so big that he could no longer get rid of them. The little prince explained, “It's a question of discipline. When you've finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet. You must be sure you pull up the baobabs regularly, as soon as you can tell them apart from the rosebushes, which they closely resemble when they're very young.” The little prince asked the narrator to make a drawing to warn children about the dangers of the baobab. He said, “If they travel someday, it could be useful to them. Sometimes there's no harm in postponing your work until later. But with baobabs, it's always a catastrophe. I knew one planet that was inhabited by a lazy man. He had neglected three bushes.” That was the motivation for baobab drawing in the book in which the planet is totally overtaken by three trees.

               I think there is a gospel lesson that we can take from this story. When it comes to our spiritual health, we should take time each day to repent and draw close to the Lord. Daily prayer, scripture study, and self-reflection help us to avoid serious mistakes and to keep the Spirit of the Lord with us. This is how one of my favorite Book of Mormon passages puts it: “Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked—And land their souls, yea, their immortal souls, at the right hand of God in the kingdom of heaven, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and with all our holy fathers, to go no more out” (Helaman 3:29-30). As we lay hold upon the word of God through daily scripture study and heeding the words of modern-day prophets, we will be protected from the snares of the devil and be led back to God. But we do not accomplish that with one grand effort; rather, it is a daily persistence to do the small things (like the pulling up of the baobab sprouts) that will ultimately protect us.  

Another important way that we can protect ourselves spiritually is to partake of the sacrament each week with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. I love the way that Elder Melvin J. Ballard put it over a century ago, “We want every Latter-day Saint to come to the sacrament table because it is the place for self-investigation, for self-inspection, where we may learn to rectify our course and to make right our own lives, bringing them into harmony with the teachings of the Church and with our brethren and sisters. It is the place where we become our own judges. No man goes away from this Church and becomes an apostate in a week, nor in a month. It is a slow process. The one thing that would make for the safety of every man and woman would be to appear at the sacrament table every Sabbath day. We would not get very far away in one week—not so far away that, by the process of self-investigation, we could not rectify the wrongs we may have done. … The road to the sacrament table is the path of safety for Latter-day Saints.” He compared partaking of the sacrament to eating physical food. He said this: “If we were given our physical food only on stated occasions and at specified places, we would all be on hand. We heard how, during the war, many communities had to feed the inhabitants at certain places. We have seen in our country that the people stood in line to get their sugar rations and other provisions, such as were curtailed and limited during the war, and they were always present, at the appointed time and place. If we really realized and felt the need of spiritual food for growth, we would be present at the appointed place where this may be, and is, administered.” Indeed, we would all be there to get food if there were only certain times and places that it could be obtained. And we should feel that way about partaking the sacrament: the Lord has given us a time and place to come and be spiritually renewed, offering us protection from the world and strength to continue in our covenants for another week.