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For both Chuck Colson and Tim Goeglein, pride, downfall and grace go hand-in-hand.

The former Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Laison, Goeglein knows what it means to be in a position of power and influence.

"You can't describe the feeling of sitting in front of the leader of the Free World and watching him take notes while you talk," says Goeglein, speaking of his experiences in the Bush White House.

That power and influence, he explains, were what led him to consider himself immune from moral failure, and to commit the act of plagiarism which led to his resignation.

"It's always something little that eventually trips you up." For Goeglein, it came in the form of a regular column in his hometown newspaper. He describes his sense of superiority in his role in the Administration--his confidence in offering the best perspectives and the wittiest insights--and how that led him to take liberties with other people's work.

When the story broke, Goeglein says he knew his career was finished. And after receiving an unforseen invitation to the oval office, he expected the worst.

"I knew this was my woodshed moment."

But what happened next took him completely off-guard.

"I launched right into an apology," he says. "But before I had finished, the president interrupted me."

"You're forgiven" were George W. Bush's words.

According to Goeglein, it took the president several minutes to convince him. But once he had accepted his pardon, he recalls asking the president how he could so easily forgive.

"We all need grace," said Bush. "I've experienced it. Now it's your turn."

For Chuck Colson, who went to prison in 1973 following the Watergate Scandal, this story sounds all too familiar. And for him, too, grace broke through at the darkest hour of life, and eventually led him to found the world's largest prison ministry, which exists today to spread that grace.

Click here to buy Timothy Goeglein's new book, The Man in the Middle.
Click here to read a selected excerpt.

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“Discourse,” an occasional podcast on BreakPoint, applies a Christian worldview lens to a broad range of issues related to contemporary culture.

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