I, for one, am hesitatnt to explain all this life's trials as punishment for vice, or all human comfort as a reward for piety. There are times, rather, when the bad experiences of the wicked serve a useful purpose in checking wickedness, and when the positive experiences of the good open the way to virtue -- but not always or in every case. Such universality only belongs to the time to come, when the one group will receive the rewards of virtue, the other the punishments of vice; "for these shall rise," Scripture says, "to the resurrection that is life, but those to the resurrection of judgment."

The events of this present life are of a different form and have a different moral purpose, although all lead in the same direction; surely what sems to be unfair to us has its fairness in the plan of God, just as in the physical world there are prominent and lowly features, large and small details, ridges and valleys, by which the beauty of the whole comes into visible existence in their relationship to each other. It is, after all, very much within the skill of the Craftsman if he should adapt the occasional disorder and unevenness of the material realm to achieve the purpose of his creation; and this will be grasped and acknowledged by all of us, when we contemplate the final, perfect beauty of what he has created. But he is never lacking in the skill of his art, as we are, nor is this world ruled by disorder, even when the principle by which it is ordered is not apparent to us.

...It might not be off the mark to speak of nauseous or dizzy people, who think that everything is revolving around them, when in fact it is they who are in a spin: that is what the people are like, of whom I speak. For they do not allow that God may be wiser than they are, if they become confused about some event in their lives.

--St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 14