EQUIP shorts: Andrea Trevenna, 'The Heart of Singleness'
(How to be single and satisfied)
The Heart of Singleness by Andrea
Trevenna speaks sensitively and practically into a topic that can dominate our
thought life, swamp our prayer life and hinder our ability to actually live the
life God has prepared for us. She puts our hearts on trial and concludes that, “Our
hearts need to be captured by something bigger and better than having or not
having a husband.”
Trevenna begins by unpacking the term ‘the
gift of singleness’ through the teaching of the apostle Paul. For many it is an
unwanted gift, the kind that warrants a ‘thanks’ through gritted teeth whilst
inwardly we grumble ‘but it’s not what I asked for’. Using Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the
well, Trevenna describes how our hearts are desperately thirsty and long for
the one who will quench that thirst. She explains how the gospel of Jesus does
just that. Where we might use religion to distract and convince ourselves that
we should feel content, the gospel warms and melts our hearts, changing us from
the inside. When we question God’s goodness as he withholds marriage from us,
Trevenna asks us to ask ourselves, “Am I really going to make the measure of
his love whether he gives me a husband, instead of whether he gave his life for
me?”
Two fictional single women accompany us on
our journey through the book, Sally and Maya. One lives her life in joyless
obedience, waiting for God to fulfil his promise to give her the desires of her
heart. The other has taken matters into her own hands as God’s will for her
life does not match up to her own. Trevenna likens the two women to the
brothers in the parable of the prodigal son, one dutiful and resentful, the
other impatient and wilful. She suggests that we may identify with either to
some extent, and that the root of the problem is in wanting what the father can
give us rather than the father himself.
This book is warm, personal, biblical, and
pragmatic. As with all conversations like this, it can only go so far in
reconciling what we know and what we feel; our sinful nature still urges us to
dwell upon what we don’t have rather than what we do. But Trevenna reminds us
that marriage is a picture, a precious picture, but a picture nonetheless, of
the relationship between us and God. She traces this relationship history along
the storyline of the Bible, and we can see that to long for a husband is to
long for the shadow of something we already have.
By Ruth Schroeter