Faith Is Essential in Cases Like Guthrie Family’s: Former CIA Protective Officer

And joining us now to discuss the case involving Nancy Guthrie is Jimmy Graham, former CIA protective officer, veteran U.S. Navy SEAL, and founder of and CEO of Able Shepard. Jimmy, good afternoon. So as you heard in the previous report, the family of Nancy Guthrie released another video pleading for the return of their mother, saying that they're going to pay for her release. I'm just wondering, in your opinion, is the Guthrie family making the right moves here? You know, first of all, our thoughts and prayers go out for Nancy and her family. I don't want to speculate at all, so I'll just be talking as me. They've been asked for a ransom, they've offered to pay, and they haven't heard back. So other than prayer and trying to get more information, I would be relying on professionals right now, because this isn't in our lives. Right now, I don't have a game plan of what if somebody I love was taken. So I'd be relying on professionals listening and then trying to see what I could do for possibly a peaceful outcome. So I mean, we don't know if the ransom note is actually legitimate at this point. I mean, can you just give us your gut feelings right now? You know, again, it's dangerous to speculate, but right now we're in a world where I was just, I was meeting with some local sheriffs recently, I was at a meeting and they were talking about people are getting angrier and more violent. So to try to make sense of nonsense just isn't a plan. There are people that are absolutely going crazy and they want to take. So there's certain things that we just can't figure out. There's so many factors that could be. I just had a conversation with somebody at the grocery store and they're like, oh, it looks suspicious, I don't know. And we could wait, we could spend all of our time speculating. It's just simply not helpful. Okay, why do you think then there is such a lack of leads? I mean, nine days into this investigation, there's no persons of interest, there's no footage released. Why is that? Yeah, again, I just, we, there's many, many cases just kind of happen under a camera. They just happen where they're now with all the cameras on, whether it be traffic cams or ring doorbells or all of these things, there's pieces of footage and it sounds like this was premeditated. It sounds somewhat professional, meaning I heard recently about a camera that was found on the roof, about the neighbors seeing something, about the actual camera on the porch deactivated. So this sounds like a professional action. So we can speculate all we want, there's just things that aren't known. So if it does happen, we're not watching the entire globe right now. So if something happens and we can't, we don't have actual facts that everybody just starts chiming in and those aren't the things that are helpful. I understand that professionals are working on this day and night and I really pray and hope for a peaceful outcome. Okay, so Savannah Guthrie said before, the greatest gift my mother gave me was faith and belief in God. Belief in God, it changed my whole life. So it looks like her faith, her belief in prayer has been central in dealing with the situation. Can you just talk to us about the role here that faith plays when a family goes through something like this? Yeah, absolutely. In a time like this, that's all you have, you know. So it's like I said, know the truth and the truth will set you free to have any peace or freedom. And I'm talking about me because I want to be sensitive to the Guthrie family. If it was me in that situation, I wouldn't want my family to be terrorized. These are terrorists who are coming into sacred spaces. Her home is a sacred, it should be a safe place. Minneapolis people walking into a church, that's a sacred space. It's actually, you know, federally protected as such so that we're feeling very vulnerable. So I wouldn't want to, my kids, they do know the truth. They know the truth is you can kill me physically, but you can't kill me. I know who I am and whose I am and so does Nancy Guthrie. You can't kill me. You can kill me for now and then I will be with my kids eternally and there's strength in that. So I think that that kind of takes some of the power away from these terrorists and a terrorist is someone who uses, you know, unlawful violence or a threat of violence to advance their own twisted ideological objectives. And it's going to get worse. So we need to be stronger spiritually, mentally, relationally, and physically in that order to face what's coming. So Jimmy, I've noticed a pattern in cases similar to Guthrie's. You know, whenever a family is struggling in circumstances such as this, faith always comes up. Why do you think that is? Again, it's all they have. It's the truth, right? So what do we have to cling to? It's my faith. It's what I absolutely believe is my, who am I, whose am I, and when my kids know that, we're operating on a different set of rules. So you can try to terrorize us. It's just not going to be as successful because we know the truth. So in the truth, it can set me free. I could have peace in that. And if you don't have that, you've got nothing. Then you will be terrorized and you will be manipulated in an evil way. So that just simply can't happen. Okay, maybe you can contrast that a bit more. You said if you didn't have faith, certain things would happen. What would be the difference between someone who has faith in these types of situations and someone who doesn't? Again, if you didn't have faith, and somebody else is pulling my strings, my puppet strings, right? I'm just dancing around and trying to do whatever I can to make you happy. What's rewarded is repeated. What's permitted is promoted. So I'm not going to second guess what the Guthrie family is going to do because it truly is their own decision. It's their decision, what they do here, and they don't need to hear from the peanut gallery right now, right? So they want to try to make the best decisions they can. And if they can go in knowing the truth about their mother, like if this, again, I want to say, if this was me, could my family say, we're going to see dad again, and dad wouldn't want us jumping through hoops and being terrorized, right? So potentially, they can say, we're going to pray about this. We're not going to be, and I tell my kids, and I'm joking, right? When I tell my kids, I don't, you know? They don't get to play me, and they know that. So perhaps that's a lesson for them in the future. Sure hope not. Okay, Jimmy, maybe just one final question here. What would be your advice to anyone who perhaps may be going through similar situations? What would you tell them? What's the most important thing you want them to know? I would say, if you don't know where you would go, like if you died for eternity, that's an eternal question. So in preparation, we speculate. We always say it won't happen here. The answer, when the problem is people, the solution is always people, right? So people getting together and taking care of one another. That's our motto is taking care of one another. That means spiritually, mentally, relationally, and physically. That is a solution. So getting together and getting strong in that. And then when people come and try to attack that, then they find out it's strong and that you can't be manipulated. And you could kill my body, but you can't kill me eternally, and I'll see you guys again. That's just a much healthier place to approach this from, and it kind of takes the wings out of these terrorists that are trying to get their way. So that is true strength, and true strength can indeed set you free. And we cannot have the terrorists get their way. Thank you so much, Jimmy, for talking with us. God bless you. Thank you.