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)

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.

32. 2. Our nature from creation enables us to be more and more closely united to the Lord. Support for this may be found in the material about levels in part 3 of Divine Love and Wisdom, particularly on the following points. There are three distinct or vertical levels in us from creation (Divine Love and Wisdom 230-235). These three levels exist in each of us from birth and can be opened. As they are opened, we are in the Lord and the Lord is in us (Divine Love and Wisdom 236-241). All processes of perfection increase and rise by and according to levels (Divine Love and Wisdom 199-204). We can see from this that the nature we have from creation enables us to be united to the Lord more and more closely, level by level.

[2] It is vital, however, that we know what these levels are. There are two kinds, distinct or vertical and gradual or horizontal, and it is vital to know how they differ. All of us have the three distinct or vertical levels within us by creation and therefore from birth. We become involved in the first level, the one called "earthly," when we are born, and we can gradually expand this level within us until we become rational. We become involved in the second level, the one called "spiritual," if we live by the spiritual laws of the divine design, laws that are divine as to their truth; and we can also become involved in the third level, the one called "heavenly," if we live by the heavenly laws of the divine design, laws that are divine as to their goodness.

[3] The Lord opens these levels within us depending on the way we live. This is really happening in this world, but not so that we can sense or feel it until after we leave this world. As the levels are then opened and perfected, we are more and more closely united to the Lord. This union can intensify to eternity as we grow closer; for angels it actually does keep intensifying to eternity. Still, no angel can enter into the first level of the Lord's love and wisdom or reach its boundary, because the Lord is infinite and angels are finite, and there is no ratio between what is infinite and what is finite.

Since a knowledge of these levels is necessary for understanding the human condition and the way it is raised and brought closer to the Lord, I dealt with this specifically in Divine Love and Wisdom 173-281, to which you may refer.