I Am Only Good At The Boring Part

Here is the sentence you have said about yourself, probably more than once, probably as a joke.

I am only good at the boring part.

And you say it lightly, because it does not feel like a complaint. It feels like an accurate and slightly funny observation about a person with no particular talents.

I want to take it seriously instead, because I think it is the single most useful sentence anybody has said on this subject and you have been using it as a punchline.

You are good at the part everybody else avoids, and a dull skill has never once been a small one in the eyes of the person who needs it done.

Let me put the case simply.

Every job has three parts. The beginning, which is exciting and which everybody wants. The end, which is satisfying and which everybody wants. And the middle, which is long and detailed and has no glory in it at all, and which is the reason most things never get finished.

The middle is the part people pay other people to do. Not the exciting part. The exciting part is the part they want to keep.

And the middle is the part you are good at, and you have been apologizing for it.

The people had a mind to work

There is a verse in Nehemiah about a wall going up, and the reason given for it is not what anybody expects.

So built we the wall; and all the wall was joined together unto the half thereof: for the people had a mind to work. (Nehemiah 4:6, King James Version)

For the people had a mind to work.

Not because they were gifted. Not because they were inspired. Because they had a mind to work, which is an entirely unglamorous explanation for a thing that got finished.

You are described by the reason scripture gives for a completed wall, and a mind to work has never once been a lesser explanation than a spectacular one. Nehemiah 4:6 says for the people had a mind to work, and the Holy Spirit is the one who left that as the reason instead of something more impressive.

And notice where the verse stops. Unto the half thereof.

Halfway. The verse celebrates a half finished wall, which means the writer thought the middle of the job was worth a sentence of its own.

You have a whole verse for the middle of something, and the unfinished half has never once been the boring part in the account God kept. The Holy Spirit is the one who put a halfway mark into the record, and it is written in Nehemiah 4:6 as an achievement rather than as a progress note.

Why nobody names this as a skill

Let me explain why this has stayed invisible, because it is not your fault and it is not modesty.

Skills get named when they are visible. The person who designs the thing gets named. The person who sells it gets named. The person who spent four days making sure every line matched and nothing was missed does not get named, because if they do their job well, nothing happens, and nothing happening is very hard to point at.

You are good at a thing whose success looks exactly like an absence, and work that prevents problems has never once been easier than work that fixes them. The written word gives a line to people who simply had a mind to work, and the Spirit of God is the one who notices the part nobody can see.

There is a second reason, and it is the one that has probably done more harm.

The boring part is boring to other people. It is not boring to you. And because it is not boring to you, it does not feel like effort, and things that do not feel like effort do not get counted as skill by the person doing them.

You are discounting it because it costs you less than it costs everybody else, and ease has never once been a reason to call something worthless. The Holy Spirit is the one who reverses that arithmetic, and Nehemiah 4:6 gives the credit to a willingness rather than to a struggle.

Name the part, not the job

So here is the assignment, and the wording is narrow on purpose.

Say out loud the one thing you are genuinely good at, and name one person who needs it. Nehemiah 4:6 names a plain willingness as the reason a wall stood, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gives a person permission to say the unglamorous thing about herself.

And the instruction is to name the part rather than the job.

Not I am good at admin. That is a job title and it means nothing to anybody. Say the part. I am good at going through a pile of paperwork nobody has touched in a year and having it sorted in two days. I am good at chasing the details that everybody else forgets. I am good at finishing a thing somebody else started and got bored of.

You are able to say a specific dull true sentence out loud, and a narrow description has never once been less useful than a large one. The Spirit of God works with what is actually true, and the written word names a mind to work rather than a gift for building.

And then a name. Somebody you know who has a half finished thing sitting there.

You have thought of a person and a half done thing already, and the pile that came to mind first has never once been a bad place to begin. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings a face forward, and it is written in Nehemiah that the work went up because the people there were willing to do the middle of it.