Pangolin are scaly anteaters. They appear at a glance to be long armored logs and their tongues are as long as their strange bodies. It has no teeth so it maintains a storehouse (gullet) full of stones & sand for digesting it's meals. It loves small beetles and termites. When eating termites it digs a small hole in the mound with its front claws and snakes it's long tongue into the mound where it becomes covered with insects.
Pangolin, when threatened, will roll into a ball so their soft hairy bellies and faces are covered. Once a lion researcher was amazed to see a pride of lions attacking one of the creatures. Lions are predatory creatures, and are not selective as to prey and they are highly opportunistic by nature. The diminutive creature was an easy target and and a quick snack! Or so the pride thought. The pangolin rolled into a tight ball which the lions proceeded to roll about and attempt to bite. Despite a crushing bite force of nearly 1000 lbs per square inch, the pride could find no purchase. The tiny pangolin's armor was more than up to the task of defense. The pangolin, stuck amid a group of frustrated lions, would wait for the pride to grow bored then unroll a bit, look around and give itself a push to roll a few inches toward safety. Of course, the lions would see the movement and immediately pounce on the creature, fail and eventually grow bored once more. Over the course of two hours, the pangolin managed to move far enough away that the lions ignored it and moved on to easier prey. The pangolin got away safe!
Several things contributed to his survival -
ARMOR
ATTENTION
TENACITY
First-Armor: his armor, which requires preening and maintenance to be effective. Not unlike the spiritual armor that we all need to have prepared and ready for defense. (Eph 6:10-20) There is a great deal of preening we must to in order to keep the helmet, breastplate, girdle and other fashions at the ready.
Second-Attention: he had to be alert to the lions, his armor would have been useless if the lions had been able to pounce before his defenses were up. Failure to keep on the watch could allow the predator to sneak across the line of no return. Once through that defensive warning barrier, we simply may have too little reaction time to prevent a death dealing blow from Satan.
Third-Tenacity: he was patient. Despite a constant and no doubt frustrating attention from the lions he slowly and methodically managed to move away from danger. We face dangers every day and often find ourselves under attack from the hateful lion. He exploits our weaknesses and even if we have a well-preened armor, Satan tries again and again to infiltrate, always vigilant, always looking for that moment when we might give pause.
Could he have just stayed away from the lions to begin with, thereby avoiding the problem all together? Not likely, the pangolin is small and scurries about at a top speed of about 10 mph. The lion on the other hand tops out at nearly 30 mph and have been known to achieve 6 foot vertical leaps and as long as a 36' horizontal leap.
The reality is that we are not stronger than a spirit creature and we do not posses the ageless intellect of a being who was in Jehovah's court for countless eons. Therefore, we cannot hope to overpower or outsmart the wicked one. However, faith in Jehovah and confidence in the resurrection gives us a tremendous ability to out-wait him. We don't have to out run or overpower the devil, his time is finite, with faith in Jehovah, ours is not.
Unlike the Pangolin, though these defense mechanisms are not automatic. It is vital that we strain to practice the traits that will allow us to be protected when we come under attack. If we foolishly waith until we are confronted with an attack, we will not be able to become something we are not and we cannot reach back and rely on something that we never trained to be.