Pastor Jung Myung Seok values time immensely—so much so that he’ll fight to gain even one second. As the president of Providence, he has a tremendous number of things to do every day. Even when it seems like he has a lot of time, once he delves into his work, he finds that he doesn’t have enough time to complete it.
He knows that time is short, and it’s insufficient because people need to achieve their goals while still devoting time to everyday tasks such as sleeping, eating, washing, buying groceries, cooking, cleaning, studying and going to school, work, church, or meetings. Therefore, although it seems like 24 hours a day and 365 days a year is a lot of time, when you actually use it, there isn’t enough time at all.
Through years of experience and enlightenment, he has realized that one of the best ways to accomplish numerous things is to focus and take action without being distracted—like you’re running a race! Moreover, he has also realized the need to take action swiftly with God’s wisdom, as if trying to catch a ray of light!
Before doing anything, Pastor Jung always prays, consults with God, and analyzes the circumstances from different angles to discern the situation. This is to avoid doing unnecessary work that wastes time. That kind of work cannot bring him joy. Therefore, he always checks before making a decision or starting something so that he won’t suffer from taking a detour or making huge mistakes.
Some people ask him what they can do about time that has already passed. To that, he says, “If you’re late, then do whatever you can while you still have the chance to do so. Doing something late is better than not doing anything at all. Let’s say that you have ten hours worth of work to do, but you didn’t realize that nine hours had already passed. Then you must do what you can in the hour that remains.”
Pastor Jung always advises people to do things on time because the one who keeps time never fails to come out ahead. If you don’t keep time, you will lose no matter what you do. If you idle away time by sleeping or lounging around, and don’t do the work that needs to be done, then time will wither away and the work that needs to be done will expire. It is a great loss. For example, if a farmer does not pick the fruit he needs to pick when it is ripe, he will suffer a loss when it rots or is taken by someone else.
In this world, there is work that needs to be done within a limited period of time. If you don’t do the work you need to do at the given time, your efforts will be in vain, just as how you’ll have no harvest to collect in autumn if you didn’t sow seeds in the spring.
There is also another secret Pastor Jung realized about keeping time. It is to do things ahead of time. If you want to wake up early at 5 a.m., you have to do the work that should have been done ahead of time—like going to bed early the previous night. If you don’t do things ahead of time, even things that would have worked out will not work out and you will fail.
Let’s say that you are running a 100 m race. You have to be ready ahead of time so you can immediately start running as soon as you hear the start signal. This concept is so important. It determines whether you will win or lose. Additionally, even a skilled person will be unable to show their true ability if they don’t practice in advance, and they will lose to a person who does things ahead of time. If you do things ahead of time, you can defeat the fastest runner in the world, even if you are just a child. And when you set off on a long journey, if you leave early, you can relax and easily be the first to arrive. Doing things ahead of time determines your fate in this way.
Whether it involves events, services, meetings, or anything else you do, if you don’t do things ahead of time, they become impossible. Before church service begins, Pastor Jung prepares everything beforehand: the sermon, the prayer, the praise, and the choir. He arrives well before service time and prepares for it.
The bigger the task, the more you have to do things ahead of time. It’s the same with your health—you have to take care of yourself before you get sick. You have to go to the hospital and get examined ahead of time. Even if you have contracted cancer, as long as you get examined and diagnosed ahead of time, you will most likely survive. If you put off the work you should do, only failure remains. And if you put off treatment for a disease, only death remains.
Pastor Jung has been teaching how to use time wisely for many years. As a leader in many areas, he is always the one who takes action first and prepares ahead of time. When he sees a problem, he tries to fix it right away. With this philosophy and his strong mentality, he achieves his goals by making sure to carry out each plan while keeping time well. In this way, he has been working diligently with determination and has been evangelizing tens of thousands of people each year. Many people, especially young ones, have benefited a lot from following his teachings and have begun to realize the preciousness of time.