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.

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

728. And her child was caught up unto God and His throne.- That this signifies the protection of the doctrine by the Lord, because it is for the New Church, is evident from the signification of the child or male child, which was brought forth by the woman who was encompassed with the sun, under whose feet was the moon, and on whose head was a crown of twelve stars, as denoting doctrine from the Word, and in fact the doctrine of truth, that is, the doctrine of love to the Lord and of charity towards the neighbour, and lastly of faith; and from the signification of being caught up unto God and His throne, as denoting protection by the Lord from the dragon, that stood before the woman who was about to bring forth, with the intention and desire of devouring that which should be brought forth. Such protection by the Lord against those who are meant by the dragon is signified here by these words. And as that doctrine is to be the doctrine of the church which is called the New Jerusalem, therefore it is said to be protected because it is for the New Church. It is said, "Caught up unto God and His throne," God meaning the Lord, and His throne heaven; it is caught up unto the Lord and to heaven, because that doctrine is from the Lord, and heaven is in that doctrine.

[2] An expression is also used of Enoch, the son of Jared, similar to that applied here to the child born of the woman, which it is said "was caught up unto God," but in these words "Enoch walked with God, and was no more, because God took him" (Genesis 5:24). Who are meant by this Enoch, and what Enoch signifies has been disclosed to me from heaven, namely, that they were those of the Most Ancient Church who collected together the representatives and correspondences of natural things with spiritual. For the men of the Most Ancient Church had a spiritual understanding and perception of all things which they saw with their eyes, and thus from the objects in the world they clearly perceived the spiritual things to which they corresponded. And because the Lord foresaw that this spiritual perception would perish with their posterity, and with this perception also the knowledge of correspondences, through which the human race has conjunction with heaven, therefore the Lord provided that some of those who lived among the most ancient people should make a compilation of correspondences and reduce them to book form (in codicem conferrent); these are meant by Enoch, and it is this book that is here signified. Because this book was to furnish the coming churches, to be established by the Lord after the deluge, with a knowledge (scientia) and cognition of what is spiritual in natural things, therefore it was preserved by the Lord for their use, and also guarded lest the final posterity of the Most Ancient Church, who were evil, should do injury to it. This therefore is the signification, in the spiritual sense, of Enoch being no more, because God took him. From these things it is evident what is signified by the child of the woman being caught up unto God and His throne.