Cardinal Newman: Trust in God

     1. "God was all complete, all blest in himself, but it was his will to create a world for his glory. He is almighty. He might have done everything for himself. But it has been his will to bring about his purposes through the beings he created. We are all created for his glory. We are created to do his will. I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created. I have a place in God's councils, in God's world which no one else has. And whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by men, God knows me and calls me by my name.
     2. God has created me to do him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to anyone else. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life. But I will be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for his purposes. As necessary in my place, as an archangel is in his. If indeed I fail, he can raise another, as he could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work. I am a link in a chain,  a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for nothing. I shall do good. I shall do his work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth, in my own place, while not even intending it, if only I keep his commandments and serve him in my calling. 
     3. Therefore I will trust him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve him. In perplexity, my perplexity may serve him. My sickness, my perplexity or sorrow may be the necessary causes of some great end which is quite beyond us. But he does nothing in  vain. He may prolong my life, he may shorten it. He knows what he is about. He may take away my friends, throw me among strangers, he may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me, and still He knows what He is about.
       O Adonai, O Ruler of  Israel, O Thou that guidest Joseph like a flock; O Emmanuel, O Eternal Wisdom, I give myself to thee. I trust thee entirely. Thou are wiser than I, more loving to me than I am to myself. Deign to fulfill thy high purposes in me. Work in and through me. I am born to serve thee, to be thine to thy instrument. Let me be thy blind instrument.  I ask not to see, I ask not to know,  I ask only to be used."


The Works of Cardinal Newman, Meditations and Devotions, pp. 300 -302