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.

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

546. Then the woman fled into the wilderness. (12:6) This symbolizes the church, namely, the New Jerusalem, being at first among few.

The woman symbolizes the New Church (no. 533), and the wilderness symbolizes a circumstance in which there are no longer any truths. The church is symbolized as being at first among few because the statement follows, "Where she has a place prepared by God, that they may feed her there one thousand two hundred and sixty days," which symbolizes the state of that church then, that in the meantime provision may be made for it to exist among more people until it grows to its appointed state (no. 547).

A wilderness in the Word symbolizes:

1. A church devastated, or one in which the Word's truths have all been falsified, as was the case with the Jews at the time of the Lord's advent.

2. A church without truths, because it does not have the Word, as was the case with upright gentiles at the time of the Lord's advent.

3. A state of temptation or trial, in which a person is seemingly without truths, being surrounded by evil spirits who induce the temptation or trial and appear to rob him of his truths.

[2] 1. That a wilderness symbolizes a church devastated, or one in which the Word's truths have all been falsified, as was the case with the Jews at the time of the Lord's advent: This is apparent from the following passages:

Is this the man who shook the earth, who made kingdoms tremble, who made the world as a wilderness...? (Isaiah 14:16-17)

This said in reference to Babylon.

On the land of my people will come up thorns and briers...; ...the palace will be deserted... (Isaiah 32:13-14)

I beheld, and lo, Carmel was a wilderness... "The whole land shall be a wasteland." (Jeremiah 4:26-27)

The land is the church (no. 285).

...shepherds have destroyed My vineyard..., they have made the field of My desire a desolate wilderness... The devastators are coming... in the wilderness. (Jeremiah 12:10, 12)

...(the vine) is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land. (Ezekiel 19:13)

...fire has devoured the habitations of the wilderness. (Joel 1:19-20)

...the day of Jehovah is coming... The land is like the Garden of Eden before it, but after it a desolate wilderness. (Joel 2:1, 3)

...see the word of Jehovah! Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of darkness? (Jeremiah 2:31)

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of Jehovah; make level in the desert a highway for our God." (Isaiah 40:3)

And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 33:9; Jeremiah 3:2; 23:10; Lamentations 5:9; Hosea 2:2-3; 13:15; Joel 3:19; Malachi 1:3; Matthew 24:26; Luke 13:35.

That such is the state of the church today may be seen in no. 566 below.

[3] 2. That a wilderness symbolizes a church without truths, because it does not have the Word, as was the case with upright gentiles at the time of the Lord's advent: This is apparent from these passages:

...the Spirit shall be poured upon us from on high, then the wilderness shall become a fertile field...; and judgment will dwell in the wilderness... (Isaiah 32:15-16)

(I will put) fountains in the midst of the valleys, [and turn] the wilderness into a pool of water... I will put in the wilderness the shittim cedar... and the oil tree. (Isaiah 41:18-19)

He will turn a wilderness into a pool of water, and dry land into springs of water. (Psalms 107:35-36)

I will make a road in the wilderness, rivers in the desert... to give drink to My people, My chosen. (Isaiah 43:19-20)

...Jehovah... will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah; gladness and joy will be found in her... (Isaiah 51:3)

The habitations of the wilderness drip... (Psalms 65:12-13)

Let the wilderness... lift up (its) voice... Let the inhabitants of the rock sing... (Isaiah 43:10-11)

[4] 3. That a wilderness symbolizes a state of temptation or trial, in which a person is seemingly without truths, being surrounded by evil spirits who induce the temptation or trial and appear to rob him of his truths: This is apparent from Matthew 4:1-3, Mark 1:12-13.