Me, Myself and Bob

Just finished Me, Myself and Bob — A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables, by Phil Vischer. A good read for anyone. Phil was the founder of Big Idea Productions, which brought us VeggieTales. He built the company, and, basically killed it. “I have dusted the body for prints, and they are all mine.” The first part of the book was about how VeggieTales came to be, complete with interesting details about technical stuff he used to make it happen. The last part is about how he got ahead of God—thus managing to bankrupt the company—and what he has learned from it all. There are spiritual lessons and business lessons.

My children grew up with Bob and Larry. We laughed along with them. I can still sing you parts of the songs from the early videos. I still think some of the earliest ones are the best.

There were some thought-provoking lines. Here are a few:

• “Externally, everything looked groovy. Internally, chaos abounded.”

• Vischer relates how he is pretty sure his business goal “emanated suspiciously from my own noggin in response to a business book exercise, as opposed to from God after much prayer and reflection.”

• The real question to ask in any failure, of course, isn’t “Who should we blame?” but rather “What did we learn?” (p. 207)

• “If God gives you a dream, and the dream comes to life and God shows up in it, and then the dream dies, it may be that God wants to see what is more important to you—the dream or him.” [From a message by Richard Porter].

There is lots of humor mixed in with what turned out to be a sad story. You’ll be informed, and you’ll also be encouraged to get your direction from God rather than your own head or a man.

• “The more I dove into Scripture, the more I realized I had been deluded. I had grown up drinking a dangerous cocktail—a mix of the gospel, the Protestant work ethic, and the American dream.” (p.237)

• God doesn’t love me because of what I can do for Him. He just loves me—even when I’ve done nothing at all. (p. 247)

Parts of the dénouement of the book (like that word?) challenges the frenetic pace we Americans live, and that includes American church people. Are we more frenetic than faithful? Maybe if we stopped long enough, got quiet enough, and in His Truth enough, we’d get a revelation instead of a good idea.

You'll love the humor. You'll grow from the story.