Me, Myself & Bob

I don't believe that I have ever done a book review here at Heart & Soul. I've discussed movies before, but never a book. That's interesting, because I do read plenty of books that would be great to discuss, yet I do try to keep this a place to chronicle my devotions, not so much what I've been reading.

Yet I read this book the other day, and I cannot stop thinking about it. It was profound- in a good way. Me, Myself & Bob is written by Phil Vischer, the creator of Veggie Tales and all things Bob & Larry, and it's the story of the rise and fall of Big Idea Productions. It was incredibly well written from that perspective, it was a fascinating glimpse into the video and movie production industry, and it also was incredibly moving. I found myself drawn right into the drama that Big Idea faced, and even though I knew how it would end, I had no idea the insight that this man would share at the end of his journey. Phil challenged me at the end of his book, there's no way around saying that. He challenged many of the ideas I'd had about dreams and visions, and I have no doubt that he is absolutely correct, and that God is using him in a mighty way to share his story and change people's lives.

I want to share one of the examples Phil shared in his book to share what I am experiencing inside. Let's talk about Abraham.

"But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?" 3 And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir." 4 Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." Genesis 15:2-4

Abraham had a dream. He had a dream of having an heir, a son to whom he could leave his legacy. And God decided to fulfill that dream for Abraham, and Abraham loved and cherished his son. But then God wanted to see Abraham's heart.

"Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." Genesis 22:2

God wanted to know if Abraham loved Him more, or his dream more. And we all know by now, that Abraham passed God's test, and proved that he loved his God even more than his own son.

Dreams and visions are just that, dreams and visions. Ideas we have for the future. Often times, those dreams are from God, sometimes, they're just dreams we have for ourselves. When we think about our dreams, what are they usually? They're plans for a house, a family, a successful career or a successful business venture. Some of us feel called to the ministry, and we have a dream of fulfilling that calling. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don't, but we often sacrifice our time with God in the name of that particular dream. When that happens, when we put that dream first, we're making it an idol. It doesn't matter if it's a dream meant to bring glory to God. When the dream becomes the priority, it's become an idol and taken the place of God in our lives. We can say that we're doing this for God or that for God...but is that what God really wants? Do you know what God really wants? He wants us. He wants you, and me, and we wants our full attention and devotion. He wants to know that we want to do what HE wants us to do, not what we think he wants us to do, or what we think would be good for us. Because it's not about us.

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10

This verse says it all. We can get busy doing all these things to bring our dreams to fruition, except that look at this verse! It says right there, in black in white that God already prepared for us what we are to do. Let's put it this way. I am a fairly busy person. My children have activities and school, so I spend time getting them from here to there a lot. I also am busy at church, busy on the worship team and spending a lot of time learning. I have my time here blogging, where I say that God must want me blogging because I keep finding the time to do it. I write recipes for the local paper, which ultimately could lead to people finding this blog and finding God in their lives. Sure, it's all great and wonderful, and I try to keep myself fairly busy. But what if God has had something else for me to do all this time, and I haven't been able to find out what it is because I've been so busy? That's an awful pill to swallow! Because if I think along those lines... I've put all my activities on a pedestal, and God is not where He should be.

It all boils down to the fact that God needs to come first before everything. I need to spend that time with Him instead of that extra hour of sleep. I need to open up my Bible instead of spending three hours in a fantasy novel. I need to just spend time praying and waiting to see what God wants me to do instead of acting on my own dreams and visions. If my dreams are what God wants for me, that's fantastic, but I won't know that's what he wants until I spend time with Him and give him my dreams. God knows my dreams already, I know that. But I need to give them to Him and say "God these are my dreams... I want to know your dreams for me. I want to do what you want me to do, be where you want me to be."

I want God's dreams for me. Not my dreams, not my husband's dreams, not the world's dreams, and not the American dream. I want to know what God wants from me, and I'm not going to know until I put Him first before absolutely everything and stop being busy just for the sake of being busy.

Oh, and by the way. It's a very good book.