mysterious

God works in mysterious ways

A phrase acknowledging one's lack of control over a situation, especially if something strange or unexpected has happened, along with the possibility that some good may come from it. A: "How are you doing since getting rejected from your dream school?" B: "Well, I'm trying to keep in mind that God works in mysterious ways, and I hope some good will come out of all of this." As Helen grieves the loss of her husband, I just keep reminding her that God works in mysterious ways.
See also: god, mysterious, way, work

the Lord works in mysterious ways

A phrase said when things have not happened as one had hoped or expected. It implies that everything happens for a reason. I know you were really excited about that job, but maybe it's for the best that you didn't get it—the Lord works in mysterious ways, after all. I thought that getting divorced would be the worst experience of my life, but then I fell in love with my divorce lawyer. The Lord works in mysterious ways!
See also: lord, mysterious, way, work
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • God works in mysterious ways
  • beck and call
  • (as) sure as eggs (is eggs)
  • made in China
  • but for the grace of God
  • et tu, Brute?
  • to (one's) credit
  • a penny for them
  • eggs is eggs
  • great minds
References in classic literature
The mysterious man-servant locked the gate behind me.
Still I heard nothing; but at the far end of the passage I saw a bright light pouring through the half-opened door of one of the mysterious front rooms.
A Rogues Life
Slumber refused to visit his eyelids and the night was passed in feverish contemplation of the chain of circumstances tending to prove the identity of the mysterious visitant to the Colosseum with the inhabitant of the grotto of Monte Cristo; and the more he thought, the firmer grew his opinion on the subject.
The occupant of the box in which the Greek girl sat appeared to share the universal admiration that prevailed; for he left his seat to stand up in front, so that, his countenance being fully revealed, Franz had no difficulty in recognizing him as the mysterious inhabitant of Monte Cristo, and the very same person he had encountered the preceding evening in the ruins of the Colosseum, and whose voice and figure had seemed so familiar to him.
Count of Monte Cristo
The girl's highly strung imagination, her affectionate and credulous mind, the primitive education which had surrounded her childhood with a circle of legends, the constant brooding over her dead father and, above all, the state of sublime ecstasy into which music threw her from the moment that this art was made manifest to her in certain exceptional conditions, as in the churchyard at Perros; all this seemed to him to constitute a moral ground only too favorable for the malevolent designs of some mysterious and unscrupulous person.
Phantom of the Opera
“I have seen Mohegan and the Leather-Stocking, with my own eyes—and my eyes are as good as anybody’s eyes—I have seen them, I say, both going up the mountain and coming down it, with spades and picks; and others have seen them carrying things into their hut, in a secret and mysterious manner, after dark.
Pioneers
I approached her outstretched hand, and felt once more the mysterious rapture of her touch on my bosom, and heard once more her low, melodious tones repeating the words: "Remember me.
The Two Destinies
The questionable sound of Silas's loom, so unlike the natural cheerful trotting of the winnowing-machine, or the simpler rhythm of the flail, had a half-fearful fascination for the Raveloe boys, who would often leave off their nutting or birds'-nesting to peep in at the window of the stone cottage, counterbalancing a certain awe at the mysterious action of the loom, by a pleasant sense of scornful superiority, drawn from the mockery of its alternating noises, along with the bent, tread-mill attitude of the weaver.
It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe; he was then simply a pallid young man, with prominent short-sighted brown eyes, whose appearance would have had nothing strange for people of average culture and experience, but for the villagers near whom he had come to settle it had mysterious peculiarities which corresponded with the exceptional nature of his occupation, and his advent from an unknown region called "North'ard".
Silas Marner
Wilson thought of the mysterious girl straight off.
Wilson said to himself, "Aha!" and thought of the mysterious girl in the bedroom.
Puddnhead Wilson
It seemed to be in Madame Olenska's mysterious faculty of suggesting tragic and moving possibilities outside the daily run of experience.
The mysterious person who figured in his wife's past as "the secretary" had probably not been unrewarded for his share in her escape.
The Age of Innocence
France's attitude in the matter is especially mysterious."
The Vanished Messenger
She thought that she had been similarly frightened once last week, and that the noise was of a mysterious kind--a sound of rustling and of three or four quick beats like a rapid step; while a shock or tremble was communicated to her heart, as if the step had shaken the floor, or even as if she had been touched by some awful hand.
Little Dorrit