Our story will end well. (If we really want it to.)

"As dark as certain chapters may be, our story will end well. When dark times come, we must grab God’s hand and fight to trust him. He is always guiding us to goodness."    ¹"NIV, Discover God's Heart Devotional Bible, eBook: Explore the King's Love for His People on a Cover-to-Cover Journey Through the Bible" by  Zondervan, Laurin Makohon Greco

I feel like the quote above is a bit "dangerous".

There's a condition built into the quote.  But the conditional word is absent.  It's implied.  And it's too easy to think that it's not even there.

That's why I have the parenthetical If we really want it to in the title.  

Because, truth is, our story isn't absolutely guaranteed to end well.

We know it's not going to come out well for everyone, because in Revelation we read -

The Dead Are Judged

Rev 20:11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

I have to say, being thrown into the lake of fire doesn't sound like a good ending to me.
Obviously, there really is a condition attached to our story ending well.

So - let's look at that - the condition.

From David, we read -

Ps 34:21 Evil will slay the wicked;
the foes of the righteous will be condemned.
Ps 34:22 The LORD redeems his servants;
no one will be condemned who takes refuge in him.

From this, we see some cases where people's stories end well - and others don't.

And we see the condition attached to whether or not our story ends well -

"As dark as certain chapters may be, our story will end well. When dark times come, we must grab God’s hand and fight to trust him. He is always guiding us to goodness."

In other words, 

Our stories will end well, if, when those dark times come, we grab God's hand and fight to trust Him, because He will guide us to goodness when we choose to follow Him.

Yeah - that's more like it.

Continuing that thought, let's check out the verses that come after what is arguably the most famous verse in the Bible -

Jn 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

Even here, there's a condition.  And even though this one isn't hidden at all, it's one we tend to be able to ignore.  Too many of us ignore - or forget - these words - whoever believes in him - and somehow come to the conclusion that Jesus death on the cross will save everyone.  No matter what.  No conditions.  But that's just wrong.
And - the verses immediately following 3:16 state that very clearly.  But still - we ignore / forget it.
We think our story will end well, because God loves us and Jesus died for us.  Even if we don't even believe in anything Jesus said.

One more example -

The Sheep and the Goats