Source: Youth Mission Date: January 31, 2026 Original article: https://blog.naver.com/y_mission/224166745401 “The most important thing is to live according to God’s standards. Even seasons when we don’t receive an answer from God have meaning. During those times, I read the Bible more than ever and received some of the most important training in my life. In the end, it matters less what you do than whose standards you live by. If you hold firmly to God’s Word and patiently keep going, one day you will see how everything comes together.” Youth Mission interviewed Jaejun Lee, CEO of Connected Insight, the 17th WITH STORE business. [WITH STORE No. 17] Connected Insight — Could you introduce your company? I run Connected Insight, a company that develops inspection systems and software based on machine vision technology. Our systems essentially take the place of the human eye on industrial production lines, inspecting products for defects and checking their condition. We combine equipment and software to build automated inspection systems for manufacturing sites. [WITH STORE No. 17] Connected Insight — How did you get into this field? A major turning point in my life actually began with a crisis in my faith. I encountered God when I was in high school. I desperately wanted to break free from the repetitive cycle of life and live a completely transformed life, so I entered Handong Global University with great expectations. But after attending classes for just three days, I realized that, fundamentally, university life was no different from high school. I became desperate. For three nights in a row, I stayed up praying and asking God to help me be born again by the Holy Spirit. But I felt no answer at all. Then, while I was sleeping, I had the same dream three times. In the dream, I saw someone committing an unspeakable sin. I instinctively knew that person was me, and I completely broke down. After that, I couldn't pray or worship. God's Word no longer seemed to speak to me, and I couldn't even bring myself to attend church. I spent several months in that state. I became convinced that God didn't love me as much as my own mother did, and that I was spiritually an orphan. Every day, I cried out to God in prayer, but there was still no answer. Eventually, I reached the point where I thought, “If God doesn't exist even after I've gone this far, maybe I should stop believing altogether.” I even took a leave of absence from university because I was considering transferring to another school. But before giving up on my faith, one thing kept bothering me: I had never really read the Bible from beginning to end. I had already made up my mind that God didn't exist, but I decided to read the entire Bible once before walking away from my faith for good. I read through it using a modern Korean translation. Because some parts were difficult to understand, I started reading it again. Then Jeremiah 3:19 struck me deeply. The passage showed me that God was waiting for me to call Him “Father” again and that He desired to have me as His child. It was completely opposite to what I had believed about God. Through that passage, I decided to hold on to my faith again and returned to university. But my life didn't suddenly change. I read the Bible for three or four hours a day. I even ran about 8 kilometers to a small rural church early in the morning to pray because I desperately wanted to meet God. Yet I still felt as though nothing was changing. In fact, the words, “His coming is as sure as the dawn,” felt almost like a source of despair to me at the time. The verse that held me together during that period was from Psalms: “Though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with His hand.” My years at Handong Global University were like a wilderness—a season of training in which I received almost no apparent answers from God. But because of that, I ended up reading the Bible more than ever. After graduation, I joined a small company that manufactured semiconductor equipment through Korea's alternative military service program. Later, I moved to other companies in the same industry and continued working in the field. Some of my university classmates had joined Samsung and LG, and they even encouraged me to move to those companies. I turned down those opportunities, but I couldn't help comparing myself with people my age who were working for large corporations. I was working late into the night at industrial sites, while people my age from major corporations were sitting in offices and dealing with executives like my boss. I began to wonder, “Did I make the wrong choice at the very beginning of my career?” I was driving one day, feeling discouraged and considering giving up four or five years of my career to move to a major corporation, when a Bible verse suddenly came to mind: “Keep the commands of the Lord your God, walking in His ways... Keep them as written in the Law of Moses. Then you will prosper in whatever you do and wherever you go.” — 1 Kings 2:3 The words came to me with incredible clarity. It was such a powerful message. I had thought that I needed to join a major corporation in order to succeed. But God's Word was telling me that it didn't ultimately matter what I did or where I went. If I remained in God's Word and lived according to it, He would be with me. So I gave up on the idea of joining a major corporation. Even after that, the path ahead wasn't always clear. There were times when the only thing I could do was simply endure. At one point, a dream seemed to close a door during a job search. Later, I decided to start my own company, but circumstances led me instead to join a global machine vision company in the United States, where I received another four years of training. Eventually, I left that company and finally started my own business. But when I stepped out on my own, I had nothing—no money, no team, and no real foundation. I had four children, so the fear of what might happen was very real. To be honest, it didn't look like I was in a position to succeed. But amazingly, doors began opening one by one—doors I had never planned for myself. We established a company in Vietnam. People began joining us, and unexpectedly large contracts started coming in. Within just one year, the company had grown into a business recognized in the market. That's when I finally realized something: Sometimes, an answer from God can take 20 years to unfold. I could now see that the words I had received years earlier—“You will prosper wherever you go”—were actually being fulfilled in my life. People ask me how I managed to prepare myself for such a promising field. But the truth is, when I was in school, this wasn't considered a particularly promising field at all. [WITH STORE No. 17] Connected Insight — What motivates you to live this way and participate in God's mission through your work? When I was 33, I went on a two-week short-term mission trip to Turkey. During that trip, I felt God calling me to something. However, after listening to my senior pastor, I realized that although I had received a calling, I was trying to accomplish it through my own efforts—essentially thinking, “As long as I get to the destination, it doesn't matter how I get there.” So I stopped. Since there was no clear direction from God, all I could do was wait and endure, just as I had before. But as time passed, I realized that God was leading me in a completely different way. Today, through my business, I have opportunities to build relationships with international partners and share the Gospel with them. I can naturally talk about faith with employees at our Vietnamese company and with our Chinese partners. I've also reached a point where simply saying, “I'm praying for you,” can have an influence on people. Looking back now, I realize that God wasn't ignoring my prayers. He was preparing something better for me over the course of 20 years. [WITH STORE No. 17] Connected Insight — What would you like to say to young people? The one thing I really want to tell young people is: Don't be in a hurry. I made many mistakes because I was impatient. I sometimes chose the easier path and ended up paying the price for it. The most important thing is to live according to God's standards. Even seasons when we don't receive an answer have meaning. During those times, I read the Bible more than ever and received some of the most important training in my life. In the end, it's more important to ask whose standards you are living by than what you are doing. If you hold firmly to God's Word and patiently keep going, one day you will see how everything comes together. [WITH STORE No. 17] Connected Insight — What would you say to students interested in engineering? When I talk with our new employees, I sometimes ask them, “What is one plus one?” Most people would say, “Two.” But engineers say it's not necessarily two. They might say it's 1.99999 or 2.0001. In the real world, one plus one can never be exactly two. Mathematically, it makes sense, but from an engineering perspective, it doesn't quite work that way. For example, if you stack two blocks that are each supposed to be exactly 1 mm high, they should add up to 2 mm. But in reality, they won't be exactly 2 mm. Why? Because there are tolerances. Engineering is, in many ways, about reducing those tolerances as much as possible. Whether you're assembling something, manufacturing a product, or reducing the width of semiconductor lines, things don't work out exactly as they do in theory. The key question is: How accurately can you make it match the target? Engineering is about continually improving that level of precision. If your personality suits this kind of work, engineering can be a very rewarding field. The opportunities and compensation in the industry are also continuing to grow. When I was young, I loved putting toys together. One of the things I really enjoyed about working in this industry was feeling like I was getting paid to pursue my hobby. A plastic model might cost a few million Korean won at most. But the equipment we develop can range from around 30 million won to as much as 7 billion won. To build this kind of equipment, I bring together sophisticated controllers and machines, write the programs, and essentially bring the whole system to life. I find that incredibly exciting. There were times when I worked all night and lost three or four kilograms over the course of a few months, but I still genuinely enjoyed the work. If you enjoy challenges, solving problems, and achieving tangible results, engineering can be a great fit for you. That said, engineering is an extremely broad field, and many people ask me which areas will be promising in the future. Honestly, I don't know either. We might be able to make a rough prediction for the next 10 years or so. But if you're asking what will happen 20 or 30 years from now—by the time today's students finish their education and spend decades working in the field—it's impossible to know for certain. Society, technology, and the way industries develop will continue to change rapidly, creating new needs and opportunities that we can't fully predict today.