Commenting on Romans 8 Luther recalls the famous saying of Augustine that "The soul is more where it loves than where it lives".
Steven Paulson explains that if the person you love is on the other side of the country your thoughts, money, time is spent there as much as possible. Inevitably, unless the love ends, the lover and the beloved will move together and the identity of each will be found in the other. As Luther says, "love transforms the lover into the beloved", or as Jesus said "two shall become one flesh".
Paulson, sees Luther then explaining this movement as part of the more significant movement of hope. I'm not sure if that is right, but Luther certainly sees hope as important and performing the same movement.
Luther criticises the philosophers for seeking to understand things by focusing on the present and metaphysics. He sees Paul focusing his attention not on creation itself but on what it is waiting for. Paulson comments:
In the forest a birdwatcher learns to listen for birds more than watch for them. A therapist learns to ignore patient projections and to listen for the true source of pain. A theologian must... learn to hear the creature waiting.
If we want to understand people, and all creation, we need to know what they are hoping for as well as what they love. Because, "hope changes the one who hopes into what is hoped for".
I've met those people who ask you off the bat "what would love to do on your ideal day?" or "what do you love most about your church?" I've also been in interviews where you are asked "where do you hope to be in 5 years?" Those are questions that probe right to the heart who you are so they are questions worth asking people you want to know.
Soon I will be moving jobs and cities. Already relationship dynamics are changing, money is being spent on things I can only benefit from after the move, thoughts are in the place where I will end up. I am becoming what I hope for.
[Tim Keller has a sermon series on the transforming power of the Christian hope]
