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.

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

1152. Verses 3-4 And the sons of Gomer Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. And the sons of Javan: Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.

'The sons of Gomer' also means those who possessed external worship, but an external worship derived from that which existed with the nation 'Gomer'. 'Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah' were just so many nations with whom such worship existed, and who also mean just so many types of matters of doctrine which were forms of ritual, derived from the external worship existing with 'Gomer'. 'The sons of Javan' means others again with whom there existed external worship derived from the worship existing with the nation 'Javan'. 'Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim' were just so many nations with whom such worship existed, and who also mean just so many types of matters of doctrine which were forms of ritual, derived from the external worship existing with 'Javan'.

7640. 'How long do you refuse to humble yourself before Me?' means disobedience. This is clear from the meaning of 'refusing to humble oneself' as not obeying. The reason why it means this is that the words here are addressed to those ruled by evil, who are incapable of humbling themselves before the Divine. For self-abasement involves the recognition of the following two things: That one is altogether evil, and in comparison with the Divine almost nothing, and that the Divine is altogether Good, and infinite. The recognition of these two things is not possible with the evil because they are full of self-love. If they do humble themselves, they act out of fear, or to the end that they may acquire important positions or make material gain. Thus when they humble themselves they do so merely with the body and not at all in the mind, which sometimes is mocking; such is the nature of self-abasement when prompted by fear or engaged in for the sake of making gain or attaining important positions. The same is true of the evil in the presence of God, though they are not aware of it. For inwardly those who are ruled by evil as a result of self-love regard and magnify only themselves; and they turn away from all who are not favourably disposed towards them. Since no self-abasement exists with the evil, obedience is meant in the internal sense by 'humbling yourself', and so disobedience by 'you refuse to humble yourself'.