Enjoyable serving or not?

Just recently I've read two contrasting quotes. They are both actually quotes of quotes. The first one comes from Donald Whitney's book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. In the chapter on "Serving" as a spiritual discipline he quotes what a missionary in Africa said in response to the question as to whether he really liked what he was doing.

His answer was "No. My wife and I do not like dirt. We have reasonably refined sensibilities. We do not like crawling into vile huts through goat refuse ..." So why does he do it? Because Christ says go and, "the love of Christ constrains us."

I must admit this disturbed me a little. Then I read something that Gerard Hughes quoted in Day by Day (volume 3). It's Frederich Buechner's "rule of thumb for vocation" and it is this; "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

On that basis, the missionary in Africa is misplaced, because "deep gladness" certainly did not come across from what he said!

Whitney quoted that missionary to illustrate we must be obedient to Christ. But it does seem to say we may well have be miserable to be obedient. However I think Buechner has it right. When God calls you to serve he gives you a passion for that service and so you serve with gladness because you are fulfilling your God-given passion.

In fact earlier Whitney quotes Psalm100:2, which says, "Serve the Lord with gladness". Now that's more like it!