How many times have I done this? An event happens and I tell myself it was God's will. Not everything that happens is God's will I assure you. Trying to divine the whys and wherefores of an event that happens in my life, apart from knowing God as He truly is, can be exhausting and fruitless.
I'll explain.
When I don't fully understand and know the character of God, then I'm apt to misinterpret something in light of my preconceived notions.
Psalm 18 has one of the most interesting passages referring to God's character:
Verses 25 and 26 describe God as a mirror to the viewer's temperament and character: "With the merciful Thou will shew yourself merciful; with an upright man, Thou wilt shew Thyself upright. With the pure, Thou wilt shew Thyself pure; and with the froward (proud), Thou wilt shew Thyself froward." Is it possible to extrapolate this across the entire spectrum of temperament and personality? If someone is bitter, angry or opressive, does God show Himself that way to them as well? It's likely that whatever condition our heart is in, we will see God as reflected back to us in the same way. If we see Him at all.
Consequently, if we choose to be kind and understanding, patient and forgiving, loving and as it says, merciful, God will show Himself to be like that—because He is like that. Jesus says that God won't forgive you until you forgive the person who wronged you (see Matthew 6:15), for example.
Which brings me back to my first point. Whenever something happens, I want to know if I'm dealing with a circumstance that was caused by God, by the devil, by another individual of any particular bent, or just something that happens that I should deal with and get over. The whys and wherefores of our days and lives are infinite. And when I try to shoehorn an effect into a cause that is incorrect, then I'm potentially going to be missing the truth. Am I being too abstract? Here's a specific point from the top of my head (a mild one). Say I went to a store and had my heart set on buying a certain product and a certain brand of said product (a food item). And when I got there, I find out much to my disappointment that the very thing I came there for was sold out. I'm of the mind that, while God may not specifically cause an event to happen that ends up being a disappointment to me, He does bring circumstances around to a better version than what I had in mind. I believe this and God does this for me time and again. But it's because I choose to believe. God reveals Himself to those who choose to believe in Him. This is the very essence of faith. Faith that turns into knowing because God makes Himself known to you. I'd like to mention that, when traversing the sequence of events that arise from an unknown or a redirected circumstance, pay attention and pray for the people God brings across your path. This is spiritual common sense. Every individual we encounter is a creation of God that He cares for just as much as He cares for us. So take a moment and lift them before the Lord. It could be (and probably is) the catalyst that causes God to begin dealing with them.
Conversely, God is not obligated to reveal Himself to the unbeliever. So I guess the passage from Psalms holds true at this end of the spectrum as well. "To the unbeliever, He shows Himself invisible."
Believe the best of God.