Me, Myself and Bob by Phil Vischer

“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. And once he’s seen that, you may get your dream back. Or you may not, and you may live the rest of your life without it. But that will be O.K., because you’ll have God.” ~Richard Porter in Me, Myself and Bob by Phil Vischer.

Phil Vischer had a dream, to build the biggest and the best Christian media company ever, to be the next (Christian) Walt Disney. And God blessed that dream and grew Big Idea Productions into a corporation worth millions of dollars, producing videos that encouraged and entertained millions of kids and adults. Then, God took it away.

This story was powerful. I understand what it is to have a dream, a Godly dream, and have it taken away or deferred. I understand what it is to ask God, “Why? Why have You not given me this good thing? This thing that is the desire of my heart and that will honor and glorify You?” It’s really hard. I don’t know real physical suffering, and maybe I would be a wimp when it came to actual suffering. But I know emotional and spiritual suffering and despair because I’ve been there. Sometimes I’m still there. And all know is that I hang on to two verses in the Bible. These are my life verses:

Job 13:15. God might kill me, but I have no other hope. I am going to argue my case with him. (New Living Translation)

John 6:67-68. So Jesus asked the twelve disciples, “You don’t want to leave, too, do you?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

I stand with Peter and Job and Phil Vischer.

“The Christian life wasn’t about running like a maniac; it was about walking with God. It wasn’t about impact; it was about obedience. It wasn’t about making stuff up; it was about listening. . . . 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.”

If you know who Phil Vischer is and you’re a fan, I highly recommend this memoir. If you’re not familiar with the creator of Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber and Big Idea Productions, I still think you might find Mr. Vischer to be an inspirational guy, in an upside-down kind of way. He tells us in Me, Myself and Bob what God showed him when the Dream, the God-given dream, died in a horribly messy and hurtful way. If you don’t have the book, you can read the short version of What Happened to Big Idea here at Phil Vischer’s blog.

4 thoughts on “Me, Myself and Bob by Phil Vischer

  1. I just read through his series of posts (skimmed a few of them). Some time ago I had read a post somewhere of his saying things like the two quotes. This sounds like it would be an interesting book.

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