Literary Thank You's 2016: Me, Myself, and Bob by Phil Vischer

'Tis the season for gratitude. We here at FONAM are perpetually grateful for good reading material and are never shy of expressing our undying devotion to the greats like Jane Austen, JRR Tolkien, and Shakespeare.

 However, perhaps at times it is good to give our vociferous love of our standard favorites a rest and identify some of our more immediate reasons for thanks. With that in mind, I give you a book for which I am particularly grateful this year.

Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables by Phil Vischer

I never found out why it was called "Me, Myself, and Bob". I'm a little sad.

I will not lie to you. I’ve always been a bit obsessed with Veggie Tales. When asked in 2^nd grade to make a presentation about where I would like to move to if I could, I said Lombard, IL because that was where Big Idea, Veggie Tales’ production company, was located. To this day, my go to cleaning playlist is Silly Songs. I may even have a slight crush on Larry-Boy.

I. Am. That. Hero!

Me, Myself, and Bob was written by Phil Vischer, the co-founder of Big Idea and co-creator of Bob and Larry. It is the tale of an introvert’s struggles in the business world and the rise and downfall of the company that produced what is, in my opinion, one of if not the greatest piece of Christian media in recent times.

From the beginning of this book, I was shocked to discover how deeply I related to Vischer’s struggles, passions, and insecurities. His interest in creative storytelling as a teaching tool, his desire to blaze a trail for wholesome cultural content, and his determination to use both to evangelize are all eerily familiar to me. (In my job as a museum educator, I use artifacts and the art of interpretation to tell stories which equip people to find God in the beauty of the world.)

In his quest to use his creative gifts to evangelize, Vischer was swept up in wild success which led to soul crushing business failure as his company Big Idea went bankrupt in 2003. While this story arc was interesting, horrifying, and heartbreaking, the spiritual lessons drawn out by Vischer were even more captivating.

Vischer relates that after Big Idea failed he felt a deep sense of spiritual loss. After a period of numbness, he turned to prayer and spiritual reading to help reorient his life towards God. In this search he found that he had taken the success of Veggie Tales as a sign of God’s approval and, for 10 years, pushed himself to become the Walt Disney of Christian media. However, he made himself so busy with this mission he had assigned himself that never stopped to ask God if it was what He wanted. Looking back on the whole affair, he wrote:

“I started trusting God more and my dreams less. I realized that I wasn’t the sum of my achievements. I realized God had let my dream die, not because he didn’t love me, but rather because he loved me so much—because I was actually more important to him than any “good work” I could possibly accomplish. I had died, it seemed, and then come back to life. Or, perhaps, come to life for the very first time.”

Wow. How many of us define ourselves by our good works? I know I certainly do. I often measure my spiritual health by counting how many volunteer hours I’ve given and how long I’ve spent in prayer. I often think to myself “I’m doing [good thing] because God would like it” before asking him what HE’D like me to do with that time.

This Thanksgiving, let’s thank God for the special talents he’s given us, ask Him what he really wants, and accept failure gracefully when He sends it our way. If you need some good reading to accompany your tryptophan induced-napping, I would recommend picking up this book...or just watching some Veggie Tales.

Just looking at his picture makes me so happy.

“Remember: God made you special and he loves you very much!”