Acts 28:1-6: in context

Shipwrecked on Malta, Paul and the others are shown kindness by the islanders, who build a fire against the cold and rain. But as Paul gathers sticks, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastens on his hand. Seeing it, the islanders conclude he must be a murderer whom divine Justice, having spared him from the sea, will not let live. But Paul shakes the snake into the fire and is unharmed. And when nothing happens to him, the islanders swing to the opposite conclusion: they decide he is a god.

The islanders' reasoning is a study in a common human error: reading circumstances as simple verdicts of divine judgment or favor. When the snake bit Paul, they concluded at once that he must be a guilty man, a murderer, being punished; misfortune, in their eyes, was proof of guilt. And when he survived unharmed, they swung to the opposite extreme and decided he was a god; good fortune, now, was proof of divine status. In a few minutes they moved from condemning Paul as a criminal to hailing him as a deity, reading each turn of circumstance as a plain verdict from heaven. And in both cases they were wrong. We are prone to the same error, both about others and about ourselves. We see someone suffer misfortune and quietly conclude they must have done something to deserve it, that their trouble is a verdict of guilt; and we see someone prosper and conclude God must favor them. But circumstances are not simple verdicts. Jesus was asked whether those killed in a disaster were worse sinners than others, and he said no; he was asked whether a man was born blind because of his or his parents' sin, and he said neither. Misfortune is not proof of guilt, nor prosperity of favor; God's dealings cannot be read off so simply from the surface of events. The suffering may be the innocent; the prosperous may be far from God. To judge people, or ourselves, by this crude reading of circumstances, misfortune means guilt, good fortune means favor, is to fall into the islanders' error, and it is both false and cruel. The good and the bad that befall us are not simple verdicts on our standing before God; and we do well to resist the quick conclusion that reads guilt into every misfortune and favor into every success.

Do I read circumstances as simple verdicts, concluding that someone's misfortune proves their guilt or that their prosperity proves God's favor, and judging them or myself by this crude reading, or can I resist the islanders' error, remembering that God's dealings cannot be read off so simply from the surface of events, and that the suffering may be innocent and the prosperous far from God?