Eric Bechler had a midlife crisis that led him to quit his job in Silicon Valley to start a small business he could operate with his children. Church and Family Life has been longtime advocates of parents walking with their children "when [they] sit in your house” and “walk by the way" (Deut. 6:7). This is the Hebrew model of discipleship. The Greek model focuses on philosophies, facts, and figures, while the Hebrew model focuses on walking with sons and daughters. Eric Bechler joins us to discuss how he worked through some of these issues with his family. Eric is an elder at Burnet Bible Church in Burnet, Texas. He and his wife have seven children. Eric worked for GE Nuclear for several years in San Jose, California, doing safety analyses for nuclear power plants. Then he worked for Applied Materials, a semiconductor manufacturer doing technical support for scanning electron microscopes and laser optical systems for semiconductor fabrication. Yet he left the glitter of Silicon Valley to live differently. He started a landscaping business so he could be closer to his family.

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture. And today we're going to talk about family life and work life and how those two things integrate. But also I want you to know about our conferences coming up in May. May 3rd we have a singles conference.

Paul Washer's gonna be preaching and some others. And then right after that is our national conference, the Chief End of Man, What is the Chief End of Man? And we're gonna answer that question. So I'm really looking forward to that. Hope you can come go to our website and check that out.

Well, we have with us today, Jason Eric Beckler from Texas, how about that? Fantastic, Good to see you. Yeah, we're going to talk to Eric about how he worked through matters of work life and family life. Eric is an elder at Burnet Bible Church in Burnet, Texas. He has seven children.

And it's always good to see you. Seen you many, many times. Yes, sir. So thanks for joining us on this. Eric worked for GE nuclear to try to figure out how to keep nuclear plants safe.

And then he worked for Applied Materials, which is a semiconductor manufacturer for over a decade. And So, Eric, this is the first time on our podcast, so tell us a little bit about yourself. Sure. First of all, thanks for having me. So, I'm 58 years old and grew up as an Air Force brat.

My dad was in the Air Force for 30 years. We traveled a lot. Unfortunately, my dad was gone quite a bit of the time as well and deployments and other things. But family was very important to us. Most of our vacations, if not all of them, were always returning back to Texas to spend time with family.

That's just what we did. As you mentioned, I have seven kids. We've homeschooled all of them. And it's been a real blessing. Two of the kids are married and we're expecting in May our first grandchild.

So we're very excited. That's really a wonderful thing. What else can I say? As you mentioned, I do lawn care. I used to work in the, Like you said, I worked for General Electric Nuclear out of college for a while.

That was not a growing business and it was in some ways disheartening to see co-workers get laid off regularly just from the type of business it was. So I transitioned to a semiconductor equipment manufacturing company and that was a very different kind of work. A lot of fun to go fix things, traveled all over the world, which led to other issues, but it was exciting. So what was it that made you move out of California from high-paying jobs in technology to do landscaping in Texas? Yeah, so while I was in California, we'd have reviews where your boss would say, where would you like to be in five years?

Where would you like to be in three years? Where would you like to be in 10 years? Mine always prefaced, well, back in Texas, this is where I'd like to be. And so while I was working for Applied Materials, we were in a boom cycle. And so we actually expanded our group to be west, central and east.

And I came to Texas to open the central office for our group. And so I got to choose between Dallas and Austin. And my wife's family is mostly from the Austin area. So we came here, continued to work for a couple of years in the high tech here in Austin, Texas. And it was during that time that God started really working on me.

I think my son was around nine years old. And for me, that was really what I would consider my midlife crisis. About halfway to 18. So his midlife really in our home. And In the job that I had, I traveled, let's say, anywhere between 50 and 80 percent of the time.

So in fact, one morning one of my kids says I was backing out of the garage. She looked at me and said, Dad, are you coming home tonight? Not, when are you coming home? Or see you, see you tonight. It was, are you even coming home?

So I traveled quite a bit. Even my wife, you know, was becoming concerned, you know, is she going to have to raise these children all by herself? And so that, that started some grumblings. So back in San Jose, California, at the church we attended, there was a young family that sat in front of us. And I think at the time, maybe we had one child, maybe we didn't even have children at that point yet.

But I noticed their children, four of them ages five through 12, they'd open their hymnals. They would sing. When the preacher was preaching, they would sit and they were looking at the pastor. There was no bag of Froot Loops. There were no toys.

There were no puzzle books. There were no coloring books. These children were participating in worshiping God. And for me, that was fascinating. You know, it was very inspiring.

And I thought, you know, this is what I want. So we got to know this family and learn a little bit more that they actually worked on training their children to participate in worship. And I thought that that was just really a really fascinating thing to do. And I was quite inspired. So this young family, all of their extended family were in San Jose and they decided to move across country.

He quit his job and they uprooted themselves from their home church, all of their family to leave. The reason they did was their oldest son, who was a teenager, had gotten into a bad group of kids. And their solution, the dad's solution was, okay, we need to get my son out of this circumstance. I'm going to quit the job. I'm going to move across the country and we're going to start fresh.

For me, this was astounding that someone that had spent so much time developing a career would give it all up to just make sure his son was getting on a better path. Revolutionary thinking. It was amazing to me. I had not come across anybody such as that. So that was something that got put in the back of my head.

That didn't influence me so much at the time, but God planted that seed in there to grow later on. So later on, after we moved back to Texas, and I'm traveling so much, as I mentioned, when my son hit nine years old, I started thinking, wow, I'm missing my children's lives. I'm spending so much time at work. Can I just interject a minute? You just mentioned your son being nine years old again.

You said something three minutes, four minutes back, but I've never heard anyone say, which is that you had a midlife crisis, but you weren't talking about your own life. You were talking about the life of your son in your home, meaning he's nine years, you've got an 18-year window. Right. And that's a really helpful way to think about it. More experienced parents know that the 18 years goes by in the blink of an eye.

And nine years, you really are at midlife of a child's time under your influence in your home. And hey, we should be thinking that way. I just wanted to stop and say, no, that's a really helpful way to think about this. Nine years in your home is midlife. You only have 18 years and it goes really fast.

Go get your midlife crisis. It was going by fast, especially when I was always away. So anyway, so that really started to grab my attention. I like to look at that as when God kind of took a two by four and hit me beside the head and said, it's time to make a change. I will say it took me maybe about two years before we really had a lot of changes made, but during that time, every Saturday morning I was meeting with a bunch of Christian men who were in our home school circle, not necessarily in my church, and we would talk pretty much only about how to be a godly father, how to be a godly husband, how to raise godly children.

We didn't talk about sports, we didn't talk about work, we only talked about those topics. And it was a real blessing for me to have a group of young men in my situation encouraging one another and challenging one another. And that was good. We used to get a magazine called Unless the Lord, and I don't think it's even being published anymore, but a lot of the articles in this magazine were very motivating to us to really refocus our attention on equipping our children and raising our children to be servants to God, so to be responsible to really develop their character. So then I'm at this crossroads where I have to make a decision.

How old were you at this time? How old was I? Let's say around 40, something like that. Yeah. So I really didn't spend a lot of time counseling with a lot of people on the heart changes coming.

We really, I spoke with a lot of other Christians about the principles of spending more time with your kids. So when we finally made the choice to, okay, we're selling our big house in Austin and we're going to move out. We didn't know where we were going to move, so we had to get a rental house. And so we moved. As I mentioned, this was a real challenge for us to make these kind of changes.

And God was so faithful during these times. And we would sit around in family worship at night and I would tell the kids and say, Dad, Dad doesn't know what he's doing, but God is calling him to make a change. I don't know what's coming, but you know what? This is a time where we need to open all our eyes and see how God's going to work in our family. And so we were really attuned to watching, let's call them, these unusual circumstances occur in our family.

It was amazing. Many different things happened during that transition period that were a little bit out of the ordinary. And for me, it was very encouraging. While we were in this rental house, we looked all over the place to move out to the country to do something different, ended up moving out to Bernadette. And that was a blessing.

We got a little bit of land, got some dairy goats and some animals. And at that point I had five children. And for about a year, year and a half, I continued to work at Applied Materials and commuted. It was, I guess, after that time period, I finally gave in my notice and told my manager, I'd like to quit. I need to spend time with my kids.

I got four boys and a girl, and the boys need a father. The girl needs a father. And so that dragged on for about six to eight months because I had nothing hard that required I needed to leave my job. Eric, what kind of biblical reasoning did you use to come to those conclusions and make the final decision? You know, I can't point to a specific verse as far as changing positions other than my heart was turned to my children.

I wanted to be their father. I grew up in a home that was a Christian home filled with love but my dad served his country in the Air Force and was gone alone. Went to war three or four times, just was gone. And I thought, well, that's a noble service to serve your country. I'm here not serving my country.

I'm in a corporation and I'm gone as much as my father was. Noah's very convicting. Why am I doing this? Oh, so I make money and have nice stuff? Well how noble is that?

Where does that leave my children without a father? So anyway, through God working through me in a lot of different ways, a lot of different books and people, a lot of prayer, a lot of hard discussions with my wife, you know, is this really where we're headed? I will say in our prayers, with the prayers of my wife and I, one of the things that we specifically prayed was that as we make these changes, God would tell her, move her in the same way as he would move me. So as we were going through, we were like-minded as we went through these big changes. So, and as I mentioned before, God gave us confirming signs step-by-step through the way.

God giving us encouragement was very, very helpful. So here we are, we're in Bernadette, Texas. We announced to my family, an extended family, that I was quitting applied materials and I'm going to do something else. And I didn't at that point really know what I was going to do. One of the visions I had was I wanted to work with my sons and I wanted it to be physically demanding and something where I could build their character.

And so those were kind of the boundary conditions I was making it on myself as far as looking what could we do. In God's providence, he put a man in our church that had that kind of company and could get me busy right away and didn't mind having my son working with me. So after about a year off of not working at all and making my wife be concerned that dad's not working, he's doing all kinds of stuff. We got to work mowing lawns and I will say for me, it was at first a very humbling thing. You know, mowing lawns is not for everybody and for any young family out there, a young father out there that's trying to struggle with these kind of issues, God will tell you what it's going to be.

It doesn't have to be lawn mowing. It can be other things. It's just the point is to do something with your children. And so for me, it worked out great. We start, I'm on my fifth son now.

He's on his second year of working with me. We usually start the boys around 11 years old working with me. And of course, the first year, it's a little struggle physically for them on the hot summers, cold winters, but we watch them closely and, and have them maybe start with one day a week, then the other boys will help. And so it's been good. We've watched the characters of the sons really grow.

Their responsibilities grow. When they would first start, we'd get to some houses where the view was just spectacular. I'd be in the front yard doing something, and they would get around in the backyard doing a push mower, and then I wouldn't see him. I think, well, my son's lost, Did something happen to him? I'd run around the house and there he's just standing there looking at this view going, wow, this is really pretty.

Like, no, no, we have work to do, son. And so I think each of the sons has had that kind of experience on the different properties, at least at some point, different boys have had different qualities, some more eager to work than others, some tending to be idle. And this kind of work has really changed that. I would say that all my sons have benefited from it. They're much more detailed focused.

They're not concerned about sweating or freezing. If there's a day you can get it done. They're very respectful. You know, the environment for a son under a mom is very different than environment for a son or a dad. And it was interesting as the kids would progress in their ages in homeschool.

When the kids hit somewhere between nine and 11, they started feeling more like the rooster in the barnyard. Yeah. Bingo. Trying to give some orders to mom and and charge and I would come home from work and my wife would pull me aside and said you know I think it might be time to start this son with you. Right.

And after about one week. She's right. They they would get straightened out and they would behave a little bit better. And that was the beginning of their formation of respect and work. So, appreciation.

So, Eric and Scott, I think the text that really brings into focus what we're solving for is Deuteronomy 6. Let me just read verse 6 and 7. Deuteronomy 6 verses 6 and 7. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up." So when you think of it in terms of an equation that we're solving for, that's what's on the other side of the equal sign.

What can I do? How can I provide and be faithful in my duty to provide for my family, but also diligently teach my children and have as much as possible this walk along, talk along type of discipleship where I am parting the things that the Lord is in a classroom activity with chalk and a chalkboard, but it actually is just part of like we live life together? Yeah, and those aren't throwaway words. Those are for the fathers of Israel. You know, the way I've tried to explain that to men is, look, if your life can't do that, then you got to figure out, if your job doesn't let you do that, then you got to figure out a way to do that, because there's the principle.

And it's a really critical principle. Hey, talk to us a little bit about the transition. What were some of the difficulties of the transition? Trusting that God would provide, right? So you at one point have this job where the type of job I had was equipment would fail in the field.

And so if the guy in the field couldn't fix it, he would call me. And if I couldn't fix it, I got on a plinth. And so I would be sent to wherever throughout the United States to fix things. And that was my job to fix things. And, you know, there's a little bit of pride and glory that goes with that.

And then your boss says, Oh, take care of this, get it resolved. And you did over and over and over. And so for me, it was very satisfying to step into a real crisis and make everything better. Now I'm mowing lawns and I'm picking up straw trash and cigarette butts in front of the HGB and McDonald's, you know, or I'm pulling weeds in somebody's beds in their yard, or you know, an old lady comes out and says, you're doing it wrong, you know, you need to do this. Less intrinsic gratification.

Yeah, So I will say the process was very humbling. And I guess no matter what you're doing, as long as you have the purpose of why you're doing something in mind, you're really able to handle any of those circumstances. So my my vision was before me. I wanted to raise and equip strong men for the Lord. Right.

So it really didn't matter if I was picking up trash. I could still doing picking up trash, mowing lawns, raking up leaves. This is an environment where I could train my children to love the Lord, to want to worship him. So it didn't matter. God has always provided a job for me.

And when I run out of boys, God will provide another job for me, if it's will. So you know, I'm on my last one and we'll see what the Lord will provide over the next two years for that, but I'm thankful. You just need to trust. I don't make the money I used to make, but the bills are paid, food is on the table, the kids have clothes, They have shelter. You know, my oldest son, he came to me at 11 years old, and this is the type of son he is.

Dad, I want to be a doctor. What's the plan? And I looked at him and said, I don't know, let's go pray. We pray. What do you tell a son at 11 years old that wants to be a doctor?

It seemed a little bit outside of my experience, but we did a lot. It turned out when he was 17, there was an ad for becoming an EMT in town. The town would help you pay for it. So we did that. He got a job in the fire department being an EMT.

Then he went to junior college to classes and lived at home. Then he went to get transferred to a four year school for the last two years, lived with grandparents. So each time having accountability of family and still focused on his goal. And I can say right now in May, he will graduate medical school in the United States Air Force. Wow.

God has opened every single door. And I can say you live by faith. I say this to some of the older guys in our church. I always am puzzled why, after seeing God work over and over and over in our lives, why we question his faithfulness. Why do we worry?

Why do we have anxiety about how things will turn out? If I could say anything to young men out there, God is faithful. He is worthy of your trust. He's not going to let you down. So you were very involved with your sons.

What about your daughters? Good. I'm glad you mentioned that. So I have two daughters. One, the first daughter, she's the third child.

The other daughter is the last child. So there's a big difference in age. My youngest daughter, she's 10. My oldest daughter was just married last summer and is expecting a baby in May, so we're excited about that. So what did I do?

So I think it's important for fathers to put the same amount of effort and prayer towards their daughters as their sons. So, you know, in our home, I come from a family where college education is very important. I'm an engineer, my wife is an engineer, our family has gone to college. So the expectation is my children will go to college as well. Uncomfortable sending my daughter to a school.

My expectation was my daughter should be in my home until she's married. Now, that doesn't mean she shouldn't have college classes. It doesn't mean that she should not be equipped. So we tried to focus her training and education on things that would benefit her as a mother and as a wife. In my lawn business, we decided to use my daughter to do our books.

So we got her training in QuickBooks and we got her doing invoices and payroll, thinking that, well, this is an activity that she could take with her into a marriage that could maybe help her husband. So she also got interested in other things. So we had her, because we had our family wear dresses, we had her learn how to sew. It was difficult for, let's say, older teenagers to find dresses that would be appropriate on a farm. So she decided she learned how to sew and make her own dresses.

She made dresses for friends. She got really good at it and started a business on Etsy, selling active modest clothes for girls. After a couple years, decided we was not making any money. So she decided to do something different. So again, with the mindset, what kind of tasks, what kind of business can you develop where you could pull that together and take it with you when you get married, your husband.

So the next thing was photography. And so she started getting into photography. It was at that point, we were looking at her schedule and she had quite a bit of free time for the next year. Nobody was interested in her. I think she was 20 years old and thought, oh, we have a window of opportunity.

And she had heard, learned about a new program at the Reformation Bible College in Florida. It's called the Foundations Course. You can do one-year study online. And so she took the opportunity of this one year to take classes in theology, hermeneutics, doctrine of man, some really nice theology classes to just grow her in her faith. At this point in time, a young man came calling and was interested in so we went through a process to understand his character and what kind of young man he was.

And when we finished, we introduced him to my daughter and they got to know each other and ended up being married. So what I can say to other families out there is you need to think about how you can equip your daughters and prepare them for being a godly mother and a godly wife. There's so many, you know, medicine, nutrition, sewing, photography, accounting, taxes. There's so many things that you can do as a young woman, and there's many, many more that could be done that could benefit her family, give herself confidence in her own abilities, and something that she could take with her and bless her family. Wonderful.

Eric, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing that. So, Jason, I guess all midlife crises aren't bad. Some are very good. Some are very good.

I think we just saw a great midlife crisis. It happens to a lot of guys in their 40s. I've seen it. So Jason, we've never been advocating that men just quit their jobs and go be with their families, that there should be a deliberate, prayerful process, and that a man has to do a careful evaluation of the whole thing. And to start now, but here's how he starts.

He starts by degrees. Take one step, Then take another step. Oh, Scott, it can be so deadly to romanticize entrepreneurship as if it's not a business with demands. You can actually increase the demands on yourself by starting a business. Entrepreneurs don't sit around and have family worship all day, they work like dogs.

If you're romanticizing it, go spend some time with an entrepreneur. If you listen to what Eric just said, he deliberated on this for two years, and Then he changed the financial structure of his family, moving out of his big house into a much lower cost rental property, and then he made the plunge. So for anybody who sees this podcast, gets exuberant and quits their job tomorrow, Don't send the bills to Church and Family Life. We will not be reimbursing them. Well said.

Well said. Hey, thank you, Eric. Yes, sir. Hope to see you soon. Thank you, too.

And thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast and hope you can be with us next time on our podcast. We'll see you then. Thanks for listening to the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up. Hope you can join us.

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