REGARDING TED TURNER, A NOTE FROM STEVE SHULTZ, PUBLISHER, THE ELIJAH LIST

The Church has been hard on Ted Turner--REALLY hard. Mr. Turner was founder of CNN, but recently ousted from CNN. You will see by this article below that he is in the crisis of his life. Believers have been hard on Ted Turner for purportedly saying that "Christianity is a religion for losers."

So what?

Unsaved people are supposed to act unsaved, are they not? Did not Matthew, the Tax collector act UNSAVED until the very moment he WAS saved and Jesus said, "Follow me!"

I believe God has a call on the church to rally around this man during his personal crisis.

SOLOMON, THE WISEST MAN WHO EVER LIVED

God related with Solomon early on and said, "What do you want for your life?" Solomon says, in effect, he is too young and unwise to govern this great people. "I need help here," is what Solomon asked.

God was pleased.

Why was God pleased? because Solomon wanted more wisdom to govern God's people?

Actually, NO! At least not in the way we've understood it.

Here's what the Almighty said,

I King 3:10-12 10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, "Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the DEATH OF YOUR ENEMIES but for discernment in administering justice, 12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.

HERE'S A PROPHETIC WORD FOR THE CHURCH

Don't ask for vindication by seeing the emotional or physical death of your enemies--or those who "persecuted the Church." Don't seek for Ted Turner finally to be "taught a lesson."

Seek only this, "Lord, you chastise those who are YOUR SONS. I pray that you would restore Ted Turner to yourself. Give him the spirit of Adoption, that he would cry out to you, "Abba! Father!"

Do you want God to be pleased with you? Pray something like the above, and you will have the pleasure of God--you will have his favor.

Blessings to you, Steve Shultz, Publisher THE ELIJAH LIST
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"TED TURNER: SHATTER TYCOON, NO INCONSOLABLE GRANDFATHER TED TURNER . . . "WE CAN ONY IMAGINE THE PAIN."

By Mark Riley, Herald Correspondent in New York From: http://www.smh.com.au/news/0108/25/world/world11.html

Ted Turner is no stranger to loss. He lost his marriage, then his media empire last year. But nothing could prepare him for the loss of his two-year-old granddaughter, Maddox Garlington, who died suddenly of a rare hereditary disease two weeks ago.

As Mr. Turner flies to Australia in the next couple of days - for the latest, and possibly last, of his Goodwill Games - there seems to be no end to his grief. His colleagues say the death of Maddox has left the 63-year-old tycoon "virtually inconsolable".

She was the youngest daughter of his youngest daughter, Jennie Garlington. Maddox suffered from Hurler syndrome, an enzyme deficiency that can cause severe mental retardation, facial distortion and serious defects in internal organs and bones.

Doctors have had limited success with bone marrow transplants, but there is no known cure. Sufferers normally die before their teens.

Just a few months ago Mr. Turner learned that another of his grandchildren had been diagnosed with the same disorder. The syndrome, commonly referred to as gargoylism because of the facial abnormalities it can cause, occurs when an inherited genetic abnormality is passed on by both parents.

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advertisement Mr. Turner has spent the past two weeks at his daughter's side. He has canceled all business appointments leading up to the Goodwill Games, which begin in Brisbane on Wednesday, and does not intend to make any public appearances until a brief news conference on opening day.

"You will have to excuse him if he is not his usual exuberant self when he gets to Australia," one of his colleagues said this week.

"We can only imagine the pain his family is going through."

Mr. Turner learned of Maddox's illness last year, amid all the confusion of the AOL-Time Warner merger and the emotional strain of his divorce.

He said in an interview with The New Yorker magazine in April that his life had hit rock bottom at that time, taking him to the brink of suicide.

"I felt like Job," he said.

Mr. Turner had been shattered as he watched his media empire slip from his grasp in the wake of the AOL-Time Warner mega-merger. His news and movie networks were consumed by the multi-media monolith. But it was just business, after all. Mr. Turner had rolled enough people in his time to know it could one day happen to him.

Just a few months before, he had dealt with a loss of a more personal nature, when his marriage to the actress Jane Fonda collapsed. Again, he had found a way of coming to terms with his pain. Partners grow apart; marriages break down; it is unfortunate, but it happens.

The death of Maddox, though, has had a profound affect on the hard-edged Southern tycoon. It is not the first time Mr. Turner has lost someone close to him. He nursed his younger sister to a slow and painful death from an immune system disease when he was a teenager. He had planned to become a missionary, but turned his back on religion after her death.

"I couldn't understand how someone so innocent should be made or allowed to suffer so," he said in the New Yorker interview.

Mr. Turner has incited the ire of the US religious right since, describing Christianity as "a religion for losers" and asking Catholics at CNN whether they were "Jesus freaks" when they arrived for work on Ash Wednesday with crosses on their foreheads.

Those around Mr. Turner say the past year has changed him, dousing some of his fire and making him less confrontational. Friends note his shoulders slope more, his hair has turned white and his hearing is failing.

Since effectively losing control of his company, he has devoted much of his time to the many philanthropic pursuits of his Turner Foundation. And he has set up the Maddox Garlington Memorial Fund for research into Hurler syndrome. His search for a cure entails potent sense of purpose - the life of his second grandchild with the disease.