A wild story of grace and mercy in the Oval Office
The remarkable grace and mercy Tim was shown in the Oval Office, how to protect against pride in your career, and why we should think of every yesterday as a prologue God has written for today.
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00:00:05] JR: Hey, friend. Welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast. I'm Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians, those of us who aren't pastors or religious professionals, but who work as public relations specialists, delivery drivers, and neurologists? That's the question we explore every week. Today, I'm posing it to Tim Geoglein, the former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush and the current Vice President of Government Affairs for Focus on the Family.
Tim and I recently sat down and talked about his remarkable story of this massive fall from grace and the tremendous mercy he was shown inside the Oval Office from President Bush, which, trust me, regardless of your politics, you are not going to want to miss. We talked about how to protect against pride in your career and why we should think of every yesterday as a prologue that God is writing for today.
You guys are going to love this short episode with my new friend, Tim Goeglein.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:15] JR: Hey, Tim Goeglein. Welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:18] TG: It's a joy to be with you, Jordan. Thank you so much. I'm really honored to be here.
[00:01:22] JR: Hey, so I want to start by taking our listeners inside of what I've heard you call before the worst day of your life. You've shared the story of this day in February 2008 hundreds of times, I'm sure. Would you mind sharing it with our listeners today?
[00:01:37] TG: I don't mind. I would be honored. It's painful. But I –
[00:01:41] JR: It’s why I asked for permission.
[00:01:43] TG: I actually made a promise to God that having brought me through this terrible crisis, that if I could ever share this testimony in a way to help another person, that I would do so. So it's in that light that I'm honored to be asked.
I had a really wonderful, remarkable, I might even say, step up to my time coming to the White House. I had worked in the United States Senate for 10 years for US Senator Dan Coats of Indiana. I was his first Deputy Press Secretary, then his press secretary and communications manager. I really loved working for Dan Coats, who really was like a second father to me, then and now a really special and treasured friend.
I had by God's grace alone every success in my time working in the Senate, and I joined the Bush campaign. I was part of the original George W. Bush for President Campaign. My wife and I and then very young sons moved to Austin, Texas to join that campaign. We worked six and a half days a week. It was a remarkable kind of adventure, I might say.
I think it's important that I share this with your listeners, and I'm actually ashamed to say this. But for every great success and ability that God had given to me, and though definitively a Christian, and all the time that we're talking about, I was also a very prideful person. I mean, to the point of a kind of toxic pride, which I think, ultimately, is I think I'm going to share was corrosive.
I was with George W. Bush in the original campaign. By God's grace, after Bush v. Gore and all of that, in 2000, George W. Bush came to the presidency. In one of the most incredible professional blessings of a lifetime, he asked me to become a Special Assistant to the President and the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. This is one of the four public policy offices within the apparatus of the Office of the Presidency.
I loved that position so much, Jordan, that if I were a billionaire, I would have done it for free. I was the President's outreach person to the faith-based community, to my fellow conservatives, to the veteran's groups, many of the major cultural institutions, the think tanks, and the public policy groups. It was really an extraordinary position.
You would think that with that kind of worldly success and acknowledging what God had done, I had kind of preternaturally understood the dangers of pride. But pride is very – it's very self-deceptive. In fact, in its very deep forms from which I suffered, it can be, as I say, morally corrosive as well. I, by God's grace, again, was one of the longest-serving members of the President's team, nearly eight years. I came back to my office at the White House one morning after breakfast with a friend, and I opened up my email. The email was very direct. It was from a reporter asking whether I had plagiarized a column that I had been writing for my hometown newspaper.
Now, I'll tell you, Jordan, for all the other times that I was confused about the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do, as you snap your fingers in that moment, I was not confused. As I shared in my first book, my memoir, Man in the Middle, I fell to the ground. I didn't kneel down to pray upon receiving this email. I fell to the ground. Maybe even collapsed is a better description. I prayed a simple but the most heartfelt prayer I've ever prayed. It’s only four words, “Oh, God. Oh, God.”
Because not only was it true that I had plagiarized part of the column that this particular reporter was writing about, that I had plagiarized other columns, and, no excuses. It was all my fault. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I did it anyway. The person to blame was me, myself, and I. No excuses. It’s tempting to say, “Gosh, I was busy,” or the stress and the pressure or whatever. But I've learned that everybody is under stress and pressure, and everybody is busy. Whether you work in the White House or somewhere else, that's the reality of life.
[00:06:47] JR: So you collapsed to the ground. You're there in your White House office. What happens next?
[00:06:51] TG: I did. Well, I'll tell you. In the political class, what I did makes you persona non grata. You know, “Tim who?” The political class has a way of cutting you off. I must tell you, Jordan, that really is what I deserved. I mean, we are Christians. The law and the gospel are real. I don't know if it's a word, but I slunk out of the White House on that Friday. I resigned my commission to the presidency.
That is overwhelmingly the most difficult thing I've ever had to do, followed by the nearly impossible thing that I had to do, which was to confront and to tell the truth to my wife, who had sacrificed everything for me. I do mean that. Everything in the world my wife had sacrificed for me. I say that twice because I can never get to the bottom or the depth of her love and grace toward me. That's more heartfelt than anything I could ever say.
When I came back in on Monday to begin cleaning out my desk and taking the pictures off the wall, the Chief of Staff said that the President wanted to see me. Of course, you and I both know what that was going to be, the proverbial, yeah, woodshed moment, which I deserved. I went over to see the President. I'm quite certain I hadn't slept a wink all weekend, and I went to apologize to the President.
To show you how genuinely terrifying this was, I was now going to the Oval Office. It was just the president and me. I was going to apologize. But just the sheer infamy and sin of what I had done and the betrayal that I had performed was very real and deep. I had really betrayed the President, who had been so remarkably gracious to me and to my family. So I went to the Oval Office, and he asked me to close the door. My first thought, Jordan, is this is going to be really bad.
There we are standing in the middle of the Oval Office, George W. Bush, the most powerful man in the world, and me, a poor, miserable sinner, bags under my eyes with no excuses. I looked him in the eyes, and he looked me in the eyes. I said, “Sir, I owe you.” Before I could get my sentence out, looking at me, he said, “You're forgiven.”
I must tell you, Jordan, I was certain, not almost certain. I was certain that I had not properly heard what he had said. I paused for a moment in this rather surreal moment, and I began again. I said, “Sir, I have no excuses to make. It's all my fault. I owe you.” Before I could get the words out of that sentence, he said to me, “You know, Tim.” He said, “Grace and mercy are real.” He said, “I have known grace and mercy in my own life.”
I'll say, again, I was so overcome in this kind of emotional landscape between what I thought I had heard and what was happening that finally, I said, “I apologize. I owe you an apology.” I said, “You gave to me and to Jenny and to our family the greatest personal and professional opportunity of a lifetime.” I said, “I have no excuses. I'm at fault. Please forgive me.” He paused, and he said, “I want to say again. Grace and mercy are real. I've known grace and mercy in my own life, and you're forgiven.”
He said now – and this is George W. Bush. He said to me, “We can talk about all of that, or we can talk about the last eight years.” He was referring, of course, to wars and natural disasters, reelection, and all of the things that a president and the people around him go through. It bonded us in a very deep way. The White House staff then and now remains very close, which is, I think, sometimes unusual in [the] White House because of countervailing pressures and stress of the day.
So for the next 15, 20 minutes, maybe it wasn't that long, it sure seemed like an eternity to me, he did something really amazing. He asked me to sit down, sit down. I mean, but he wanted to spend time with me. He asked me to sit in the chair where a head of state or the Vice President or an honored guest sits there next to the fireplace, not someone like me. I've never forgotten that ever, and I never will.
We prayed together and gave each other a bro hug on my way out of the Oval Office. He invited my wife and me and our boys to the Oval Office the very next week. He said to me, “I want to share with them what a wonderful husband and father you are.” I mean, can you imagine? There are some people, and I think there are otherwise very good people, Jordan, who talk a lot about grace and mercy and love and forgiveness and forbearance. But it's another thing altogether when you're the one who has been betrayed. You're the one who has been victimized. I do mean that, by the way.
In this instance, as a member of the President's team, I had put myself first. I didn't put the country first in that regard. I didn't put the President first. I put me, myself, and I, and my ambition first. I must say it foisted me and my family into a self-imposed crisis that all, by God's grace, I know that I'm forgiven. That is as beautiful of a reality as the conversation that you and I are going to have this morning or today, whenever people are listening.
But in my life, I will never, ever forget the kind of limitless grace flowing from the heart of Jesus Christ through the president toward me. I will never forget that, and I can never adequately say thank you.
[00:13:22] JR: Man, and this is why I wanted you here, right? Regardless of politics, this is probably the best story I've ever heard of what grace and mercy, Christ-like grace and mercy looks like in the workplace. Not just mercy, not just refusing to do harm to you, but the graciousness of letting you pull up a chair and honor you and the contributions you had made to the administration.
I got to imagine you've dwelt on this moment many, many times. I got to imagine that it has greatly impacted the way that you extend grace and mercy to others that you work with. Talk a little bit about that.
[00:14:06] TG: I, a number of years ago, was seated on an airplane next to a man who had lost everything in a tornado. I've never forgotten this. Sometimes, when you're sitting there in the airplane, you have small talk over a soft drink and a bag of peanuts. I remember casually getting into this conversation and who are you and so forth. Very quickly, what became very obvious to him and to me was that he was going to share with me this remarkable crisis of a tornado not only destroying his home and property but also his business.
On its face, as you're getting into a story like this, you realize you're about to walk through with someone this remarkably devastating chapter of his life. What was so remarkable to me, Jordan was that his crisis was not manifested by him, but by so-called Mother Nature. When he had to pick up the pieces, it's remarkable how many people in his church, in his community, and in his workplace came around him.
I thought to myself, one crisis, you have no control over, and another crisis, in my case, I was the catalyst. I was the victimizer. I was the one who imposed the storm on somebody else. But I think what these stories have in common is how you recover, how you think about it, and the gift, and the blessing. I think about this very often, and I’m not overstating it or understating it. But for purposes of our conversation, the blessing, and I mean this, the blessing of my crisis was not only that I was forgiven. Praise God for that, which I do every day. But it taught me in the rawest sense that it's how you recover from failure.
Because you may think, as the crisis bearer, right, that people are watching you in that crisis. But I actually think the overwhelming majority of people whom I've come in contact with, what they're looking for because they want you to do well, they want you to recover. They want you to apologize. They want you to be sincere in the apology. Then they want you to get on with life. They want to see you recover.
I can say it with authentic humility. I mean, the real kind that I praise God for my crisis. I praise God for that failure. It has fundamentally changed my outlook, not only on the things and the people above all that I value. But it has centered my relationship with Jesus Christ, and therefore, my view and relationships with other people in a way that manifestly never could have been the case had I not failed so completely and utterly.
[00:17:23] JR: Praise God for that. I mean, this is the real meaning of Romans 8:28-29, which we take out of context all the time. God's working everything for our good, which is our sanctification. I think the workplace is one of the primary crucibles through which God just beats pride out of us and selfishness and greed, and reveals these idols of our hearts in a loving way so that we will make Him the ultimate and only thing.
You mentioned that pride is self-deceptive before. If you were to go back, how would you protect against this? How would you remain ambitious for the good work that God called you to do but not allow that good thing of professional success to become an ultimate soul-crushing life-destroying idol?
[00:18:16] TG: May I tell you, I really do believe that that is the central question. I think it's the central question in the sense of the following. Here we are in 2023. You and I can sit down and have a cup of coffee and talk about the Battle of Gettysburg. We can conclude that this was the hinge point of the Civil War, that these three days the war could have gone either way. We can talk about what ifs, what ifs, and what ifs.
In real life, and I do mean this, in real life, it’s very important as early in life, in my view, that we commit ourselves to the deepest possible understanding of why character matters. That character is not just offering someone a cup of hot tea and a cookie. Character defines us. Character, in many ways, has to be habituated from a very young age. I want to be, if I may, very candid. I was surrounded by loving parents of the highest possible character, pastors, churches, communities, and a legion of friends. I do mean that. I speak not nostalgic or sentimental, but I speak in authentically glowing terms of the concentric circles around me.
But I think, if I may, Jordan, that speaks to just how corrosive fallen human nature is. So I think sometimes we have to not just be theoretical about the things that are so central and foundational to our faith, namely the character and humility of Jesus Christ. But I think we have to internalize the importance of those traits. Then we have to work very hard to live our lives in that regard. We have to remember that as important and as central as forgiveness is, it's not something that you earn one day and then move on. It's something that you have to live, in my view, every day. That's the timelessness of grace and forgiveness.
But as you say, in my instance, and without being moralizing or sermonizing but merely sharing from my own experience, I think focusing like a laser beam in the rising generation of young Americans on the centrality of character, I believe that character and integrity are the coin of the realms. I think that character and integrity do make up a person's future. So I think that that is a very important thing from a very young age.
[00:21:04] JR: Today, you're serving as the Vice President of External and Government Relations for Focus on the Family. What does character look like in that context, right? So it's obvious how your faith shapes what you do, the substance of what you're advocating for on Capitol Hill. But what does character look like practically, as you're doing that work, as a relations person, as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill?
[00:21:26] TG: I am thrilled and honored to be asked that question because as a Christian and as a conservative and working for a very large, prominent national and global ministry, I am well aware that I take all of that into every meeting, every telephone call, every email, every text. May I tell you, all that I've shared today I see as a prologue to preparing me for this part of my life.
I think that that's why I was so eager in some detail to share what had happened. Because I believe that in the Christian life, it's a tapestry. You're always being prepared. You can be involved in the things that you and I might say seem to be the most minimal quotidian, unimportant things. Why am I doing that? Why am I spending this part of my life doing those things?
Then of a piece in the Christian life in a way that's almost tangible, you wake up one day, and you say, “Oh, my. All those things that I thought were so unimportant, so minimal, so unrelated, they turn out to be the things that beautifully prepared me in my own vocation to do what I'm doing now.” I don't think always that comes with age and maturity. I think a young person can recognize this easily very early in life.
But in my own instance, I've come to see that my time as an intern on Capitol Hill, my time as a television producer, my time working in the United States Senate, and my time working at the White House was really a step up and a beautiful God-ordained preparation for my time working to defend marriage, family, parents, human life, religious liberty, all of those things.
I must say I'm an author. I have three books. I have a fourth book that will come out in a couple of years. But in the present book, which I know you're aware of, Toward a More Perfect Union, I wanted to make the cultural and moral case for teaching the great American story.
[00:23:41] JR: I love this idea of treating everything in our life and work to date as a prologue. It reminds me of David's conversation with Saul when he's deciding to go up against Goliath, and Saul is like, “Hey, you're not qualified.” David doesn't say, “Oh, yes.” He's not pointing to his strength or his slingshot strategy. He points to the prologue of his life. He says, “Your servant has been keeping His father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep in the flock, I went after it, and I struck it. I was faithful in the little things,” right? That's a beautiful, beautiful reminder that God is using all of this to form the tapestry of what will come tomorrow for us as faithful servants.
Hey, Tim, three quick questions we wrap up every podcast with. Number one, which books do you find yourself recommending most frequently these days?
[00:24:33] TG: I think that I find myself most frequently these days recommending a series of books that I read, absorbed, and have used in the preparation for my book, Toward a More Perfect Union. Those books are really solid, excellent American history; the History of the American People by the historian Paul Johnson, 1776 by David McCullough.
[00:24:57] JR: So good.
[00:24:58] TG: Yes, books that are great books of history, great books of biography, great books of culture that really uplift and help to propel forward the narrative of my own book. I must say, I think it has been it's more important than ever in American history that people are reading important books because it is so easy in our age of distraction not to read books. To read a few words here and there, and click a few memes, and then on you go. But to actually put our social media life and IT life on forward for a few hours and to read important books, I think, is really important. It's not antiquated. It's not antediluvian. It's timeless. It's nourishing.
[00:25:44] JR: I love that. Hey, Tim, who would you most like to hear on this podcast talking about this intersection of faith and work?
[00:25:51] TG: I'll tell you, I think there are so many remarkable people you could have. But I believe that one conversation involving both Os Guinness and John Stonestreet would be a remarkable conversation. I think that –
[00:26:05] JR: I don't know John. I know Os, but I’ll look up John.
[00:26:09] TG: I believe that Os Guinness is a very underappreciated major public intellectual.
[00:26:17] JR: Agree.
[00:26:18] TG: Yes, a Christian in the front ranks who has a fluid pen and is gifted with eloquence, insight, and lyricism. I believe that John Stonestreet, who is the President of the Colson Center, was named for my great friend, Chuck Colson, and from whom I learned an enormous amount. I think that the Colson Center and John Stonestreet are doing remarkable work in the public square for all the things that Christians should be interested in and hold most dear.
[00:26:49] JR: That’s a great answer.
[00:26:50] TG: Yes. To have people of that caliber, I think, would be worth your while.
[00:26:55] JR: That's a great answer. Hey, Tim, looking back on this major event in your career in the Oval Office, we've already unpacked a lot from that. But what's one thing from that scene do you want to reiterate to our listeners before we sign off, this group of listeners who are thinking about what it means to be a follower of Jesus in the workplace?
[00:27:17] TG: I'll tell you what I like to leave with you. When I was sitting in the Oval Office that day, there were three people who came to mind. Over my left-hand shoulder as I was sitting in a chair in front of the fireplace in the Oval Office was a very famous portrait of George Washington. He really was, as his greatest biographer, Thomas Flexner, called him, The Indispensable Man, a man of bottomless character. I was honored that day that Washington was present.
When I looked across the Oval Office, I saw an equally powerful portrait of my second favorite president, who is Abraham Lincoln. In fact, I keep both Lincoln's and Washington's portraits in my office here at Focus on the Family in Washington. Like Washington, Lincoln was one of our greatest presidents. If Washington was the man who gave us victory in the revolution and the possibility of a new country, it was Lincoln's courage in the Public Square that kept us united. I think it's probable, Jordan, that if he had lost in 1964, excuse me, in 1864, I think we – ipso facto, it would have been at least two countries and maybe three. So I think Lincoln's courage was remarkable.
My third answer, part of the same one, might surprise you. I was surprised that George W. Bush did not keep a portrait of his own father in the Oval Office. There have only been two times in American history where we have had a father and son as President; John and John Quincy Adams, and George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. I asked the President one time about this. I said, “We're surrounded by great art. We're surrounded by great portraits. Have you ever thought about having a portrait of your father in the Oval Office?” I think this is a beautiful way to conclude our conversation because George W. Bush's response was the following. He said, “You know, I don't hang the portrait of my father on the office wall, but I hang him in my heart every day.”
[00:29:25] JR: I love that picture of hanging portraits of fathers in our hearts, and most importantly, portraits of our Heavenly Father and His character and the portrait that we have in the Gospels of Jesus Christ as we go to work.
Tim, I want to commend you for boasting in your weaknesses. Such a hard thing to do, but I know why you do it because Jesus is the hero of your story. So thank you for doing that. Thank you for telling your story in a way that God gets greater glory and giving us such a practical example of what grace and mercy look like in the workplace.
Tim — if you guys are interested in learning more about Tim, you can find all of his great books on Amazon, including The Man in the Middle, which tells the story of his time at the White House, and his most recent book, Toward a More Perfect Union. Tim, thanks again for hanging out with us today.
[00:30:12] TG: It's been a real blessing and joy. Thank you, Jordan. God bless.
[OUTRO]
[00:30:17] JR: What a story. I heard Tim tell that story in a keynote last year, a much longer version of the story. You could hear a pin drop in the room. What a beautiful picture of mercy and grace. Listen, you believer, the grace and mercy you've been shown in Christ Jesus isn't going to be on the front page of the Washington Post. But all of us have been shown that type of mercy. Go extend it to others today.
Guys, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast. I'll see you next week.
[END]