Does God want us to be happy? What does the Bible say about happiness?

“Happiness” may seem like a passing thing, and hardly the ultimate goal in most belief systems. In fact, though, it is the Lord’s greatest goal for us: He wants us to be happy. If we allow it, He will lead and guide us to be as happy as we are able to be.

The whole reason the Lord created us was so that he could love us, and what else but happiness do you wish for someone you love? But the happiness the Lord wants for us is not the passing joy of satisfying our bodily desires but the exquisite eternal joy of conjunction with the Lord and true love of the neighbor, things that are harder to see and harder to attain but ultimately far more delightful.

Swedenborg distinguishes heaven’s happiness from worldly happiness of satisfying our bodily desires. In heaven, all happiness is felt from loving the Lord and being of use, living for the sake of others. Everything the Lord does is part of his attempt to lead us to that state, and in everything that happens to us - even the things that are the most tragic on the natural level - he provides opportunities for us to move toward that state.

In Arcana Coelestia 6392, there's this: "...performing good deeds without thought of recompense is that in which heavenly happiness consists." A couple of sentences later, there's another key statement -- i.e. that this real love of the neighbor has to be rooted in a "new will" in us, a will that can only be implanted by the Lord when we make room for it, and seek it.

In the American Declaration of Independence, the "pursuit of happiness" is one of the 3 enumerated inalienable rights that our Creator endows us with. Certainly, the Lord wants our happiness, and wants us to pursue it. In a way, though, if we pursue it directly, externally, we will probably not get it. If we pursue happiness for others, we will be making our minds open and ready for that new will. (See Arcana Coelestia 454 for more about this.)

The Lord also leaves us in freedom. We can reject his efforts and turn away if we choose to, and while that choice may seem to us to lead toward happiness, it's a passing, low-level happiness that is ultimately only a shadow of the joy he desires for us. However, people in hell are "happy" being there - at least as happy as they CAN be - because the life there matches the self-centered love they cultivated while on earth. If people in hell could be lifted up to heaven, they would feel tormented.

From Psalm 65:9-13:

Thou visitest the earth, and blessest it; thou makest it very plenteous.

The river of God is full of water: thou preparest their corn, for so thou providest for the earth.

Thou waterest her furrows; thou sendest rain into the little valleys thereof; thou makest it soft with the drops of rain, and blessest the increase of it.

Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy clouds drop fatness.

They shall drop upon the dwellings of the wilderness; and the little hills shall rejoice on every side.

The folds shall be full of sheep; the valleys also shall stand so thick with corn, that they shall laugh and sing.

From John 15:11:

I have told you these things so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

(références: Arcana Coelestia 1153 [2]; Divine Providence 37)

37. 4. The more closely we are united to the Lord, the happier we become. We can say much the same about levels of happiness as was said above (32 and 34) about levels of life and wisdom that depend on our union with the Lord. These times of happiness, bliss, and sheer delight intensify as the higher levels of our minds are opened within us, the levels we call spiritual and heavenly. Once our life on earth is over, these levels keep rising forever.

34. 3. The more closely we are united to the Lord, the wiser we become. Since there are three levels of life in us from creation and therefore from birth (see 32 above), there are quite specifically three levels of wisdom in us as well. It is these levels that are opened for us in proportion to our union; they are opened in proportion to our love, that is, since love is union itself.

However, we sense this level-by-level ascent of love only dimly, while we sense an ascent of wisdom clearly if we know and see what wisdom is. The reason we are aware of levels of wisdom is that love enters our perceptions and thoughts through its desires, and our perceptions and thoughts stand out in the inner sight of our minds, the sight that answers to our outer, physical sight. This is why we can be conscious of our wisdom, but not so conscious of the desire of love that is giving rise to it. It is much the same as it is with the things that we do behaviorally. We notice how our bodies are doing things, but not how our souls are behaving. So too, we are aware of how we contemplate, perceive, and think, but not of the way the soul of these activities, the desire for what is good and true, is giving rise to them.

[2] There are, though, three levels of wisdom: earthly, spiritual, and heavenly. We are on the earthly level of wisdom while we are living in this world. This level can be brought to its height of perfection within us and still not cross the border to the spiritual level, because this level is not just an incremental extension of the earthly level. These two levels are united by their correspondence to each other. We arrive in the spiritual level of wisdom after death. This level too can be brought to the height of its perfection but still not cross the border to the heavenly level of wisdom. This latter level, again, is not just an incremental extension of the spiritual level, but is united to it by their mutual correspondence.

We may therefore conclude that wisdom can be raised up threefold, and that on each level it can be brought to a height of perfection by simple increment.

[3] Once we understand the ascent and perfection of these levels, we can to some extent understand what people say about angelic wisdom, namely, that it is inexpressible. It is so far beyond description that a thousand images of angels' thought, arising from their wisdom, can present only a single image to our thought, arising from our wisdom. The other nine hundred and ninety-nine images of angels' thought cannot find entrance because they transcend the material world. I have often been taught this by vivid experience.

However, as already noted [33], the only way to arrive at this indescribable angelic wisdom is through union with the Lord and in proportion to that union, since only the Lord opens the spiritual level and the heavenly level. This step is limited to people who are wise because of him, and we are wise because of the Lord when we cast the devil, or evil, away from ourselves.