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)

1153. That 'the sons of Gomer' also means those who possessed external worship, but an external worship derived from that which existed with the nation Gomer, follows from what has been stated and shown several times already about the meaning of 'sons', as well as from the fact that Gomer is one of those nations which possessed external worship corresponding to internal. Seven nations which possessed such worship are mentioned by name in the previous verse, and seven again, called 'the sons of Gomer and of Javan', in this. The specific differences however between one nation and another cannot be stated, as only their names are given here. In the Prophets however when the subject is specifically this or that type of Church-worship the differences can be established. In general all variations of external worship, as also of internal, arise according to the adoration of the Lord in the worship, and the adoration is according to the love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour that exist there. For it is within love that the Lord is present, and thus within worship. The differences of worship therefore existing among the nations mentioned here depend on the nature of His presence within.

[2] To make it easier to talk about how types of worship differ and how they did so in the Ancient Church among various nations, let it be realized that all true worship consists in adoration of the Lord. Adoration of the Lord consists in being humble; and being humble consists in the self-acknowledgement that with oneself there is nothing living and nothing good, but that with oneself everything is dead, indeed corpse-like. Being humble also consists in the acknowledgement that everything living and everything good come from the Lord. The more a person acknowledges these things not just with the lips but in his heart, the more humility he has; and consequently the more adoration - which is true worship - and the more love and charity, and the more happiness. The first contains the second, and they are so linked together as to be inseparable. This shows what these differences of worship are and the nature of them.

[3] Those who are mentioned here and are called 'the sons of Gomer and of Javan' are people who likewise possessed external worship corresponding to internal, but it was somewhat more remote than that of the people mentioned in the previous verse. This also is why they are called 'sons'. Generations descending one after another, or derivatives, here progress from what is interior towards things that are exterior. The more someone relies on the senses, the more exterior he becomes, and consequently becomes further removed from true worship of the Lord. For when it is more concerned with the world, the body, and the earth, and less with the spirit, it consequently becomes more remote. Because these people called the sons of Gomer and of Javan relied more on the senses, they focused worship even more on external things than those referred to as their parents and cousins had done. Consequently they form a second group here.

10307. 'And the incense which you make, according to its composition, you shall not make for yourselves' means that worship consisting of the Church's holy truths must not be attached to the loves that are a person's own. This is clear from the meaning of 'the incense' as worship, dealt with above in 10298; from the meaning of 'making according to its composition' as consisting of the Church's holy truths ('making according to its composition' implies making from the same spices, and those spices - stacte, onycha, and galbanum - mean the Church's holy truths in their proper order, 10292-10294); and from the meaning of 'you shall not make for yourselves' as not attaching to selfish purposes, thus to the loves which are a person's own. For what a person does for the sake of himself he does for the sake of his own selfish loves. An attaching is meant here because it speaks of their making the incense for themselves.

[2] The situation in all this must also be stated. All the truths which the Church possesses have two loves in view - love to God and love towards the neighbour. The whole Word, consisting of Divine Truth itself, from which all the truths that the Church possesses are derived, hangs on those two loves, as is clear in Matthew 22:40; Mark 12:30-31; and Luke 10:27. These places say that all the Law and the Prophets hang on them; and by 'the Law and the Prophets' the whole Word is meant. But it is quite the opposite to attach Divine Truth or the Church's truths to the loves that are a person's own. By doing this the person turns away from the Lord towards self, that is, away from heaven towards hell and becomes as one of those who are there. For those in hell have the Lord behind their back and their own loves before their face. Indeed when seen by angels they appear upside down, with head downwards and feet upwards.

[3] When God's truths become attached to the loves that are a person's own they cease to be truths, because attaching them to those loves allows evil to penetrate them, which perverts them and produces an outward display of falsity from them. But if such people are told that truths should not be treated and understood in that way but in some other, they do not wish to grasp this, and some in fact cannot do so. For to tell anyone something that goes against the assumptions reinforced by his own loves is to go against the actual person; for it is to go against his understanding as governed by his will. Those who falsify truths and adulterate forms of good by attaching them to their own selfish loves are dealt with many times in the Word, where Babel is the subject, in particular in the Book of Revelation.