Respecting your privacy

Jesus, help me ask for privacy when I need it and respect what other people want. Amen!

A sick man begged Jesus, "If you want to, you can heal me." Jesus felt sorry for him and said, "I do want to. Be healed." And the man was! Jesus asked him not to tell anyone about it, but the man couldn't help it and told everybody. Then Jesus got so famous, He couldn't even go into a town without being mobbed.

Privacy is a big thing for kids. Grownups like to embarrass you by talking about how you didn't care about privacy when you were little, but now that you're older, you probably have rules about covering up and shutting doors at certain times!

This week's Gospel (Mark 1:40-45) is about another kind of privacy. In the Gospel story, Jesus heals someone but asks the man to keep that private. Jesus wants to do some more teaching and quietly help more people before He gets really famous.

If you know any little kids, you know that they couldn't care less about privacy. They run around the house naked; they tell you all about learning to use the bathroom by themselves. They even think you're silly for wanting privacy yourself.

It seems like the man in the Gospel story thought Jesus was silly for wanting to keep quiet about His miracles for a while. After the man was healed, he was so excited, he wanted to tell everyone! He had a good heart, but he wasn't respecting Jesus' privacy.

The important thing to remember about privacy is that everyone feels differently about it. Families have different rules, but everyone has to respect each other. For some kids, not getting the privacy they want is embarrassing; others don't worry about it.

For Jesus, losing privacy made it harder to travel around safely and help people. Respecting someone's privacy is always a good idea!