Does everyone have to work with the poor?

A friend asked me whether his lack of interest in the poor made him a bad Christian. 

I asked him what he was passionate about. 

“I am a nurse. I am passionate about helping sick people.” 

“You have already found your vocation. Serve Jesus with all your heart in that hospital,” I encouraged him.

Another friend said she felt called to minister to university students, mostly from affluent backgrounds. “Is that valid?” she asked. 

“Of course! Who will love them if you don’t? Teach them to establish the Upside-Down Kingdom of Jesus. Those young people need to know God’s heart for justice and the poor as much as anyone because they will be the nation’s leaders.”

The Bible says that Abraham practiced hospitality and God was with him. Elijah loved to pray and God was with him. David ruled a kingdom and God was with him too.

You ask, "Is there some way I can find my own allotted work?” Yes. Search for the deepest inclination of your heart and follow it to where it meets the suffering of the world. 

Ask how God has uniquely wired you to follow Jesus and build his Upside-Down Kingdom, which is always, somehow, even indirectly, Good news for the Poor, Freedom for Captives, or Sight for the Blind.

Or in the words of Mother Teresa, “Find your own Calcutta.”