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)

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.

5664. 'Has given you the concealed gift in your pouches' means that it came from Him without the exercise of any prudence by them. This is clear from the meaning of 'the concealed gift' as truth and good conferred by the Lord without man's knowledge; and from the meaning of 'the silver put back in their sacks (or in their pouches)' as without expending any power of their own, dealt with in 5488, 5496, 5499. From this it is evident that 'has given you the concealed gift in your pouches' means that from Him - that is to say, from the Lord's Divine Human - came truth and good in the natural, without the expenditure of any power of their own. And because the gift comes without the expenditure of any power of their own, it comes without the exercise of any prudence by them. The expression prudence is used for the reason that prudence is the virtue [in man] that answers to providence [in God]; and what is attributable to Divine Providence is not attributable to human prudence.

5664[a] 'Your silver came to me' means that it will seem as though truth has been acquired by them. This is clear from the meaning of 'silver' as truth, dealt with in 1551, 2954. The coming of their silver to him implies that payment had been made by them, thus that they had made an acquisition for themselves; for' buying' means acquiring, 5655. This explains why 'your silver has come to me' means that truth has been acquired by them. Yet because the truth which constitutes faith is never an acquisition that a person makes but is a gift instilled and conferred by the Lord, though it seems to be an acquisition made by that person, the expression it will seem as though truth has been acquired by them is used.

[2] The fact that truth is instilled and conferred by the Lord is also well known in the Church, for the Church teaches that faith does not originate in man but comes from God, so that not only confidence but also the truths that constitute faith come from Him. Yet the appearance is that truths of faith are acquired by the person himself. The fact that they flow into him is something he is totally unaware of because he has no perception of their doing so. The reason he has no such perception is that his interiors are closed, so that he is unable to have any communication with spirits and angels that is perceptible by him. When a person's interiors are closed he cannot know anything whatever about what is flowing into him.

[3] But it should be recognized that it is one thing to know the truths of faith, another thing to believe them. Those who merely know the truths of faith consign them to their memory in the way they do anything else that is an item of knowledge. A person can acquire those truths without any such inflow into himself; but they do not possess any life, as is evident from the fact that a wicked person, even a very wicked one, can know the truths of faith just as well as an upright and God-fearing person. But in the case of the wicked, as stated, truths possess no life; for when a wicked person brings them forth he sees in each one either his own glory or personal gain. Consequently it is self-love and love of the world that fill those truths and give them what seems like life. But this life is akin to that in hell, which life is called spiritual death. Consequently, when such a person brings forth those truths he does so from his memory, not from his heart. But someone who has a belief in the truths of faith is bringing them forth from his heart when they pass through his lips; for in his case the truths of faith have so taken root in him that they strike root in the external memory and then, like fruitful trees, grow up into interior or higher levels of the mind, where tree-like they adorn themselves with leaves and at length blossom, to the end that they may bear fruit.

[4] This is what someone with belief is like. He too has nothing else in mind, when employing the truths of faith, than the performance of useful services or the exercise of charity, which is his 'fruit'. These are not the kind that anyone can acquire by himself. Not even the smallest can be so acquired by him; rather, the Lord gives such to him freely, doing so every single moment of his life. Indeed, if he will but believe it, countless gifts are imparted every single moment. But man's nature is such that he has no perception of the things that flow into him; for if he did have that kind of perception he would fight against the idea, as stated above, for he would then think that if the idea was true he would lose his selfhood, and with this his freedom, and with his freedom his delight, and so would be left with nothing. And without that perception a person knows no other than that such things originate in himself. This then is the meaning of the explanation 'it will seem as though truth has been acquired by them'. What is more, if a person is to have a heavenly selfhood and heavenly freedom conferred on him, he must do what is good as though he himself were the source of it and think what is true as though he were the source of that. But when he stops to reflect he must acknowledge that such goodness and truth have their origin in the Lord, see 2882, 2883, 2891.