Trust in the Will of God

We have no reason to believe that God is not almighty, just because the wicked do many things that are against his will. Because even when they do what he does not wish, he will himself do with them what he does wish. In no way, therefore, do they either change or defeat the will of the Almighty…. So he makes use of bad people in accordance, not with their warped will, but with his straight and true will…. Who could find the words to explain, or the praises to do justice to the immeasurable good conferred on us by the Passion of the Savior, in which his blood was shed for the forgiveness of sins? And yet this stupendous good was achieved through the malice of the devil [and] the traitor Judas. Nor does justice require that they should be rewarded for the good that God has conferred through them on the human race; rather it is just that punishment should be meted out to them, since their will was to do harm.

But just as we have been able to find a case which would be manifest even to us of how God has made good use even of the bad works of the devil…and the traitor Judas for our redemption and salvation, so too in the hidden and secret recesses of the whole of creation, which neither our eyes nor our minds are sharp enough to penetrate, God knows how he makes good use of the bad, so that in everything that comes to be and is accomplished in the world the will of the Almighty may be fulfilled.

                                                                                                                                                              Saint Augustine