Bill’s blog

from 1 Cor. 6:11, 20; Rev. 1:5

1. Let us love and sing and wonder
Let us praise the Savior’s name
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder
He has quenched Mount Sinai’s flame
He has washed us with His blood
He has washed us with His blood
He has washed us with His blood
He has brought us nigh to God

2. Let us love the Lord Who bought us
Pitied us when enemies
Called us by His grace and taught us
Gave us ears and gave us eyes
He has washed us with His blood
He has washed us with His blood
He has washed us with His blood
He presents our souls to God

3. Let us sing though fierce temptation
Threatens hard to bear us down
For the Lord, our strong salvation,
Holds in view the conqu’ror’s crown
He, Who washed us with His blood,
He, Who washed us with His blood,
He, Who washed us with His blood,
Soon will bring us home to God

4. Let us wonder grace and justice
Join and point to mercy’s store
When through grace in Christ our trust is
Justice smiles and asks no more
He Who washed us with His blood
He Who washed us with His blood
He Who washed us with His blood
Has secured our way to God

5. Let us praise and join the chorus
Of the saints enthroned on high
Here they trusted Him before us
Now their praises fill the sky
Thou hast washed us with Thy blood
Thou hast washed us with Thy blood
Thou hast washed us with Thy blood
Thou art worthy Lamb of God

©2001 Laura Taylor Music.

Which runway show at New York Fashion Week (ad link removed thankyouverymuch) do you wish you could attend?

Puh-leeze! 

Have y'all noticed how generic the QOTDs and the VoxHunts have gotten? "What hot new restaurant...?" "What are your next five songs...?" The questions by real people used to be fun to read and answer because they let you get to know people better. I'm getting tired of this place. 

What shows are you looking forward to in the new fall TV season?

None. Oldies include Battlestar Galactica, Lost and 30 Rock. I have fewer and fewer season passes on my Tivo. I get a feeling I'm going to get a lot more reading done this year and that's a good thing!

What one year of your life would you like to re-live, if you were given the chance? 
Submitted by Ross. 

Any year that ends in 0. And the more zeros in that zero suffixed year, the worse I want to relive it knowing what I know now.

Should driving while talking on a cell phone be outlawed? 
Submitted by Soup.  

Tough one. I think some people can and some people can't. I can't do it while driving a stick or doing something complicated with the car. I'd like to see a law made where if you were in an accident, or driving recklessly, your fine would be increased.

But that doesn't cover those people who are just driving off someone else. These are the guys who get on the phone and mindlessly do whatever the guy in front of him does. These people are very dangerous.

We need to learn how to drive with our cell phones or don't do it at all. If you're entering a highway, tell the person you're talking to to hold on, do what you have to do safely and then talk to them again. Drive the car first! That's your priority!

It should be illegal to hold the phone in your left hand. That's your turn signal hand and you need to use it. For reasons like this, hands-free devices could be made mandatory.

I think it's possible to use them safely, so I don't want to see a law enacted. But for Pete's sake, we need to treat our phones and conversations as a much lower priority than our driving. That is possible.

My coworker played a song on his Mac today. It was "Somewhere Out There" sung by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram. I believe it was the theme song to the animated movie An American Tale. I remember being in my 20s after some romantic disappointment hearing that song on the radio, looking at the moon thinking, my future wife is probably looking at that right now. I also remember being advised to pray for my future wife for whatever she might be in need of at that moment by Sunday School teachers and friends, thinking she might be praying for me as well.

Well, in all likelihood, my "future wife" wasn't staring at the moon that night. She hasn't been praying for me and I had only been praying for a figment of my imagination. You know, we tell each other and ourselves a lot of crap in hopes that they'll feel better and I think it needs to stop. We don't know what the Lord has for us down the road. What we should have been doing was comforting them with the treasures we have in him for they are wide, deep, real and irrevocable. I'm a content and happy man right now, but when I think of the youth I wasted in hoping for this or that, it makes me sad and a little disappointed in myself. I'm thankful for and to the people who were a lot more honest in their counsel and I wish I'd heeded their advice more.

Praise God for his goodness, especially in the hard things! He will never fail.

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:26ff

Show us something that makes you cross.
Submitted by Rev Stan.

Windows-logo

Microsoft
How do I hate thee?
Let me count the ways!
They are beyond the grains of sand on the shore or the stars in the heavens!

Microsoft's idea of smart text selection has driven me batty and I mean right over the edge. I can't stand it! I have never, ever, ever wanted it to select beyond where I had dragged my mouse over text. The very idea that it would assume I wanted to select the entire word without any recourse not to makes my bowels shake! Furthermore, you don't even have to move into a word to select it. No, you only have to touch the bloomin' thing and you've got it. To get what you want, you have to pre-consider which direction you want to select from and drag accordingly. You mean I have to memorize that when I drag from left to right how it acts as opposed to right to left? This is supposed to save time and energy? Puh-leeze!!!

I have to use these beasts of hades at work, but at home it's Microsoft free. God uses a Mac, folks. Get a clue!  Apparently, a number of you have as Mac market share last quarter jumped from 3 to 5 percent! That's huge for a three month period. There, all you have to do is select the start point and the end point and you've got your selection whether it's in the middle of a word or not (which I do VERY often). If you want the punctuation at the end, you can have it. If you don't, then you can not select it. Oh, and it works backwards and forwards!

Yesterday, Apple introduced their latest version of the iMac. It's a stunner. I literally gasped when I saw it. So they look so good at home that you don't have to hide it when company comes. It's just the opposite actually. And it's affordable.

Now you may be thinking that this is a minor thing. Maybe it is. But with all the other crap that you have to go through in the PC world, especially at home with security and if you're not hip to all that, you really, truly, unequivocally need a Mac. I promise you'll be much happier. I'm a PC expert and I would just assume go without a computer if that was my only option.