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.

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

418. The previous verse deals with celestial things, which are the attributes of love, the present verse with spiritual things, which are the attributes of faith. These spiritual things are portrayed as 'the harp and organ'. That stringed instruments, such as harps and others like them, meant the spiritual things of faith is clear from many points of view. In the worship of the representative Church instruments like these, and the singing likewise, had no other representation. This was why there were so many singers and musicians, the main reason for such representation being that all heavenly joy produces gladness of heart, which was expressed by means of singing, and subsequently by means of stringed instruments that strove to match the singing and uplifted it. Every affection of the heart also has this capacity to produce singing and therefore the things which go with singing. Affection of the heart is something celestial, singing issuing from it something spiritual.

[2] That singing and the like means that which is spiritual has also become clear to me from angelic choirs, of which there are two kinds, celestial and spiritual. From the vibrant quality of their singing, to which the sound of stringed instruments may be likened, spiritual choirs are readily distinguished from celestial choirs. This will in the Lord's Divine mercy be described later on. What is more, the most ancient people related that which was celestial to the province of the heart, and that which was spiritual to the province of the lungs. In so doing they related that which was spiritual to whatever involved the lungs, such as singing voices and other similar things, and so to the voices or sounds of such instruments. The reason for their so relating them was not only that the heart and lungs represent a kind of marriage, like that of love and faith, but also that celestial angels belong to the province of the heart whereas spiritual angels belong to that of the lungs. It can also be recognized that such considerations are meant here from the fact that this is the Word of the Lord, which would contain no life at all if its message were merely that Jubal was the father of those who play on harp and organ. Nor would any use be served in anyone's knowing it.