5B24.    Job 7:1-4, 6-7.  “Job spoke, saying: Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?”  Life is often lived without any self-compensation or just getting done what one feels one must do out of obligation without getting any sense of payback and without ‘what’s in it for me’.

Mark 1:29-39.  Jesus cured the mother of Simon’s wife.  She gained back her health and “waited on them.”  She went back to being the kind person that made her feel useful.  After curing “all who were ill or possessed by demons,” “rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.”  After working hard, Jesus felt the need to stay connected to God, his Father, his spiritual source of energy.  Then he felt driven to continue to go on to other places to preach the gospel.  Jesus said, “For this purpose have I come.”

1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23.  In regard to preaching the gospel Paul writes, “For an obligation has been imposed on me and woe to me if I do not preach it!”  In Acts13:2 & 4 the Holy   Spirit sent Paul and Barnabas to preach the gospel.  More than just being sent, Paul seems to be deeply driven by the Holy Spirit to not only preach the gospel but to make himself “a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible;” “to become all things to all, to save at least some.”  I think Paul is saying that he felt so compelled and constrained that he was doing anything and everything that is morally acceptable to convert people to Jesus.  In bringing the gospel to others Paul hopes that he himself will one day have a share in it by going home to the Lord.      (2 Corinthians 5:8)