When a Good Deal Isn’t

Before my wife came to her senses she gave me the go ahead to run off and retrieve a truck camper.  I had found this “beauty” on Craigslist and pitched my idea to her with maybe some slight embellishment of how this was truly a smart idea.  The price was right, the pictures were just blurry enough to hide how sketchy this contraption truly was, the answer from Jan was “Yes” and I was out the door and down the road with my truck and trailer before she had a chance to reconsider.

Classified ads, Facebook marketplace, and Craigslist are full of good finds, bad ideas, and good intentions.   As a guy I see every object on there with potential and my mind races with how I would adjust, modify, or develop my new “cheap” project.  A truck camper was on my list as a must have at one time because I wanted to do a road trip out west with our family…with our little house strapped to the back of our truck.  I looked for months and had all kinds of ideas of what I wanted and how I would develop my little project.

I was pumped when I arrived at the house selling the camper.  It was only $500, which seemed like a steal for a lightweight camper that I could make our own.  But anyone with any brains and experience with classified ads or deals on social media knows that there’s an entry fee and then the actual fee of the additional time and money to make something the way you want it to turn out.  For this to be safe and sanitary enough to sleep in it would require some major cleaning.

The camper looked like it did time hosting a circus.  Not the entertainers…the animals!   Nothing worked as it should inside and it had some grime all around.  Fortunately, it didn’t smell too bad, just old.   But I fell in love at first sight and quickly schemed how I would get this contraption home, because it wasn’t exactly built for my particular truck.  Just another little hurdle to get over for my dream truck camper!

We put the camper on a small trailer, strapped it down, and took as many backroads home as I could.  I arrived home not necessarily to cheering but to laughter and a lot of “oh my gosh, what did we just buy!” comments.  I was not deterred however and made a rolling cart for my new prized possession so I could easily move it around the driveway to work on it as well as show our neighbors the many appealing sides of our “tenement on wheels”.

Over the next few months I had that thing looking like new.  There was new paint, new doors, and a deep cleaning.  Nice laminate floors were installed and some nice rope lighting hung so that we could see. I ripped out everything we didn’t need and made some modifications so we could all sleep at night but haul our gear during the day.  I developed a way to actually load the camper in the truck bed.  I even weighed the whole thing so I knew what effect it would have on our truck.  It was sweet and I was proud.

Once again, I got my sweet wife to go along with a plan and we hauled the camper off for a triathlon.  Jan, our dog Kobe, and I set up camp for one whole night.  We popped it up, slept in it, and gathered all kinds of attention.  After a good night’s sleep and the triathlon, we headed home and I put it back in its home behind the garage.  That’s where it sat until our next big excursion was planned.

And then it burnt to the ground.

We had a garage fire and our little popup camper was one of the first things to go.  As it turns out thin aluminum siding and a wooden framed camper does not repel fire very well.  If you didn’t know the camper was there before the fire you wouldn’t have evidence to prove it after the fire.  It was gone.  Cancelled.  There was nothing left!

One thing we found out dealing with insurance after the fire was that our little camper, and my pride and joy, wasn’t covered under our policy.  It would have required an additional policy.  So while I put a lot of dreaming and energy into that project, I was not entitled to a new replacement popup camper from our insurance company.

Entitled is a funny word.  I had put a ton of thought and effort into something we ultimately got one night’s use from.  It was easy to think that because I put forth effort and created something that was questionably cool that someone else should foot the bill to repay me.  But I didn’t have coverage for that, just the experience and memories.  My perception of what I had insurance on brought a lot of entitlement to my thoughts when they denied paying me for something I valued.   They didn’t seem to care that I took something destined to the landfill and made it look somewhat useful!

Ultimately we did make plans and our family has done many trips…without the Craigslist camper.  To be honest we don’t miss it at all, and we travel pretty efficiently without having a house on the back of the truck. It’s been great even though it certainly didn’t line up the way I planned.

Entitlement creeps in our lives more than we think.  It’s an emotion that’s not only reserved for insurance companies denying sketchy truck camper claims.  Entitlement comes in all different ways, when we produce an effort we expect a certain outcome.  We might hold others to our standard…that they had no idea about or chance to meet!  Entitlement is bending the world to us and our will. 

As time passed by I sulked less about my truck camper and thought more about different ways to travel.  As it turns out our family really enjoys staying in houses and hotels far more than in a dingy truck camper from 1992.  The method to which we travel is different than my initial bright idea but after getting over my entitlement we learned to entrust our dreams.  Entrusting meant that we didn’t see exactly how it was going to happen, we just trusted that things would develop over time and that the desires of our heart, in God’s timing, could still work out.  And if they didn’t work out then God had other plans and that was ok too!

Sometimes it takes some time to get past entitlement and into entrustment.  Entrustment can be painful.  Ugh…the waiting.  The unknown.  The perceived “everything happening is bad”.  Entitlement is like a quick shot of energy that makes us feel better for a second.  Entrustment is the steady burn of God’s presence over a lifetime.

Entitlement versus entrustment.  It’s a daily battle my friend.  Will we trust our future and outcomes to God, or will we beg and plead to get our way for the moment?  I’d encourage you to seek out entrustment.  Let the entitlement burn up and disappear.  You won’t even miss it when God shows you a different way to go.