I hate the word "conviction"

Every month in Base Camp, we teach the kids a big idea. When I saw this month’s big idea, I closed my eyes and shook my head.

Conviction.

I detest the word conviction. It makes me so uncomfortable, I can barely collect my thoughts to explain why.

Maybe because it’s so similar to the word convict? Could be. After all, sometimes it’s our convictions that imprison us.

Or is it because we humans often bellow out our convictions so loudly, we forget how to listen? And love?

The first week of the month, the kids learned how Jesus had to hold firm to his convictions in order to submit to God’s plan for his death. And I wanted to throw something. Because Jesus’s death is a story about love and sacrifice and trust and redemption—all words I really like—but it is not a story about conviction.

Let’s clarify. A conviction is a strongly held belief. So, because I strongly believed the lessons for our Base Camp kids sucked, I wrote a “concerned” (i.e., angry) email to one of the people in charge (a friend of mine, I might add), and sat back, arms folded.

See?

Conviction. Just lovely.

The second week of the month, we moved on to studying Daniel. I opened my Bible in curiosity.

Daniel and some of his friends were captured by a king who was obsessed with idols, plus he was a raging approval-addict (I can so relate). The king wanted Daniel and the other young men to look studly, I guess as a reflection on himself, so he set up a specific food and exercise program for his newest captives and then busied himself with something else.

Daniel was okay with the plan, other than the part about eating the palace food. We’re not told why, but Daniel didn’t want any part of the meat and wine the king served up.

As a vegetarian teetotaler (two of my strongly held convictions), I thought, “Daniel? You, sir, rock.”

But what really caught my attention in the story was this:

Daniel was determined not to defile himself by eating the food and wine given to them by the king. He asked the chief of staff for permission not to eat these unacceptable foods.

Huh. He asked permission. He did not, we are told, put his hands on his hips and stomp his feet. He didn’t insist on an audience with the man in charge. He did not vehemently argue his point on a radio talk show. He didn’t even fire off an angry email.

He asked permission.

And this is a kind of conviction I can get behind.

A conviction that listens.

A conviction that thinks.

A conviction that asks.

The chief of staff admitted he didn’t have any issues with Daniel’s concern, but that he was terrified of the king. So the two, talking back and forth, cooked up a plan, one that honored Daniel’s request and had an escape hatch for the chief if things didn’t work out.

Things worked out.

Daniel grew strong and beautiful and brave on a diet of vegetables and water. The king was happy. The chief kept his job and his head.

Now, I doubt the king became a vegetarian alcohol-abstainer. The chief of staff probably didn’t, either. But we are told Daniel’s friends did, and even some of the other captors.

All because Daniel asked permission.

So, when I was irritated with the big idea for the month, what if I’d asked one quiet question instead of writing many loud sentences? What if I offered a plan rather than a complaint? How might the week have changed if I held my conviction in one hand and an idea in the other?

I’ll be honest. I still don’t love the word conviction. I think that’s because my understanding of it has a lot more to do with noise and emotion than kindness and trust.

So here I sit, with my conviction against conviction in one hand … and a question in the other:

May I try again?