Auto Focus or Manual?

   I read this in Psalm 28 this morning:

"The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in him my heart trusts, and I am helped;"
   Sometimes I think that God has allowed me to have this photography hobby in my life to point out lessons that I need to learn. Lessons of life and trust and humility, and not just those of taking good pictures.

   Yesterday my post was all about things I saw in someone else's backyard and I used a few shots that I had seen there, and I enjoyed doing that, even though any great relevance to life was missing. I was just fun for me, both the taking and the posting of those pictures.

   Then, in the afternoon, Mayre and I went to walk on the beach. Most of the Labor Day tourists had departed for home, so I took my camera, just in case something popped up that looked interesting. I took some shots, but with the sun and the water and the sand, it just seemed better to take them on auto focus rather that do all of that myself.

   I had read, and others had told me also, that good photographers use the manual focus mode to frame and compose their shots, rather than relying on the features of the camera, so I have been trying to use that and to do the work myself.

   I shot away but had the feeling that something was not quite right. Even though I had decided because of the light factors that I would use the auto focus mode, I did not feel that the camera was operating correctly. It was difficult to see, after taking and reviewing the shot, if I was getting the sharp focus that I wanted..

   But I kept on, and it was not until we got back into the car and I got ready to put the camera away, that I realized that, even though I had changed the mode to auto, I had not changed the lens to auto focus. It was still in manual, and I had tried to take all those shots on auto when the lens would not allow me to do it. My trust was in the mode, but I had kept it from operating because I had kept the control of the process for myself.

   How that is like my life a lot of the time. I want to let God take over and do it, but I keep the control in my own hands. Then I realize that it is not working and He has to remind me again why.

   So there I go again, messing it up and wondering then realizing why.

   Too soon old and too late smart.

   Help me to trust and rely on You, God and not on my own manual controls.