Tim remembers the day he was told, “The boss wants to see you.”

He didn’t want to face his boss, knowing what he had done was wrong. As a matter of fact, he was clearing out his office that day, having already turned in his resignation.

As Tim met the boss face to face, he tried to apologize for his actions, but the boss interrupted.

The boss said, “You’re forgiven.”

Tim tried to apologize again, and this time the boss said, “Tim, I have known grace and mercy in my own life.”

On the third try Tim said, “I categorically owe you an apology.”

To which the boss replied, “Tim, you’re forgiven. Forgiveness is real. I’m extending to you categorical grace and mercy.”

Tim Goeglein’s boss was President George W. Bush for whom he had worked as an advisor for nearly eight years.

While serving as the deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, Goeglein was also writing a column for his hometown newspaper in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He received an email from journalist one day asking him if he had plagiarized a recent column.  

“It was true,” Goeglein admitted to the student body of Columbia International University as he retold the story during a Chapel service. “Not only had I plagiarized that column, I had plagiarized many other columns …. I knew what I was doing.” 

These days, Goeglein serves as vice president of External and Government Relations for the Focus on the Family ministry based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. But the story of his days at the White House are not just one of a forgiving president, but of the dangers of pride that led to his exit from Washington, D.C. He had forgotten God, and thought he could do no wrong.

“Deep, toxic, poisonous pride had finally caught up with me,” Geoglein said.

He also noted that his crisis came from a failure of his own making, “ultimately hurting deeply those I care about most.”

“Above all, above all, hurting the relationship between Jesus Christ and myself, ” Geoglein emphasized.

Referencing the season of Lent, Goeglein added, “I came to share with you, the power of the limitless grace and mercy and love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the season where we are all heading to Jerusalem together.”

Goeglein’s experiences in the White House are detailed in his book, “The Man in the Middle,” published by Lifeway in 2011. 

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