Our faith links us to the supernatural realm. It connects us with what has been declared impossible, something not measurable within the limits of human practicality. Practical faith is a manageable faith in human terms. It does not need God to survive. A faith limited to human practicality is not really true faith because it functions only within the realm of human intellect. Intrusions from outside its practicality are suspect.

A dictionary definition of the word “practical” is defined as “to be concerned with the actual doing or use of something rather than with theory and ideas.” It lacks the imagination of something beyond its current understanding of reality. When faith becomes overly practical in terms of its ability to imagine other possibilities it parks and does not move. The miraculous might be acknowledged, but not considered as a viable option because it comes from a realm not known for being practical in human terms.

Practical faith thrives in systemized forms of theology where all of God has been figured out and lined out. It creates circled wagons of defensiveness when the supernatural is offered. Today, some movements that began in a supernatural environment have since sent their faith to seminaries and universities where it died a slow death under the burden of practical, earthbound limitations of human intellect.

The first followers of Jesus did not have a practical, overly groomed, and defined faith. It was raw, child-like, and not practical. This kind of faith poured vials of valuable perfume on the feet of Jesus, raised bodies that were pronounced dead, traveled to the third Heaven to see unimagined wonders, and was rewarded with other-worldly revelations while exiled on lonely islands. Practical faith is dangerous to the experience of true faith. Fight its invitation when it comes. Without that fight, our faith will become merely a practical form of religion.