when does god play a role and when does god not

My question recently has been when does God play a role in what is happening here on earth? sure if you're a pantheist then god is all over in everything and working in all things ever. i am not that. but sometimes things happen and it makes me wonder "is God a part of these events and if so what is God trying to say, if anything." If God is not a part of it, then it could just be a string of events that is either good or bad. Usually when it's bad the question that follows is "what is God trying to teach me in this?" My typical response is, maybe nothing, maybe it's just something that is really shitty and we need to move on. I tend to error on that side of thinking.
Here is my current example. This is just a minutiae compared to greater things on this earth, such as natural disasters, deaths, crime, winning the lottery, cancer, etc....

We were planning to go to cyprus to visit sara's dad and family but thought with our finances we should get squared away with that first and then plan a trip somewhere. so we thought maybe we'd do a small inexpensive ski trip up north in lutsen. well that fell through and in the end we were happy because the water heater went out when we were supposed to go on a ski trip and we had a ton of water in our basement. so within a week we've had several thousands of dollars mount up to create more debt in our lives. I asked myself if God had a role in these trips falling through because of all the things that happened. Well of course this leads to more questions like: would God have halted these trips if he knew all these expenses would happen? does God even work that way? does God even know what's going to happen before it happens? or does God know all the options that are possible and lets them play out by allowing us to interact in the world? why not just lets us go on the trips and keep the 4 year old water heater working for 10 more years? were we supposed to learn something in this? have we "sinned" and are now being punished? were we irresponsible with our money and now God is teaching us a lesson? if so what is that lesson?

I think you get it. When does God play a role events on earth? The earthquake in Japan is a great example. Was it God? I'm sure some evangelist will say it is some sort of sin in Japan that God got pissed and did this to them. I think those people are freaking crazy. This is where I respond with, sometimes really shitty things happen in this world and this is one of those times. It is unbelievably sad and tragic and I think it is our responsibility as humans to react when things like this happen, and by react, I mean helping in ways that we can.

I don't know. just some thoughts about God working here on earth. How, When, Why, Where and What is God doing? Sometimes knowing when God is present seems easy, but then again, in those moments, I may be wrong, it may not be God. Maybe it is? Do you just go with your gut feeling and call that God or not God? If that is the case, I feel like that could be very harmful/limiting/etc...to the image and truth of who God is. The people at these baptist churches who are protesting military funerals are representing God. Their gut and view of scripture is telling them one thing and they are representing God to many people in a negative light. Maybe the gut is not always the best source.

Help? Thoughts? Comments?