The Undriven Life—The Christian Difference, Part 5 by Carolyn Cote

After my first son was born, I felt adrift. Choosing to stay home to care for him during the early 80’s when working moms were much more the norm, left me dealing with a chronic sense of unimportance. I longed to do something noteworthy and I set my sights on figuring that out. The day came when I knew that I had found my cause, my importance.

Matthew 7:13-14, describes three characteristics of the driven-life. “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

Wide, broad, many.

In the driven-life, our natural distrust of ourselves causes us to choose the wide, the broad, the populated ways. We go from cause to cause, teaching to teaching, book to book, podcast to podcast. When one of these runs out of its energy to animate us—we move onto the next one. If we have lived the driven-life for decades, the pattern leaves a trail of discards behind us.

Following Christ is an adventure and it’s the only adventure in this life which lasts into eternity. He leads us through small gates, down narrow, often unseen paths with few companions. We follow Him by sheer faith into the unknown oftentimes with halting steps. We soon begin to gain experience and can testify that we are led by the most trustworthy, ever present, and all-knowing God.

After I’d found my cause, the next four years would find me driven to establish and build Tuolumne County’s first Pro-life ministry. The ministry would not just inform, it would meet teen’s and women’s every need: pregnancy testing, housing, food, baby care items, clothing, mothering classes, childbirth classes, transportation, and adoption information. I was going to do good.