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)

1154. 'Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah' were just so many nations with whom such worship existed, and who mean just so many types of matters of doctrine which were forms of ritual, derived from the external worship existing with 'Gomer'. This is clear from the Prophets where the same nations are mentioned again. Those nations mean in every instance doctrinal teachings or forms of ritual. And as usual they are meant in both senses, at times in the genuine and at others in the contrary. Ashkenaz is mentioned in Jeremiah,

Set up a standard on the earth, sound the trumpet among the nations; consecrate the nations against her, cause the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz to hear against her. Jeremiah 5:27.

This refers to the destruction of Babel where 'Ashkenaz' stands for its idolatrous worship, that is, for external worship separated from internal, which destroyed Babylon. In particular it stands for doctrines that are false. Thus Ashkenaz is used in the contrary sense. Togarmah is mentioned in Ezekiel,

Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were your traders in the souls of men, and they gave vessels of bronze for your merchandise. Those of Bethtogarmah gave horses and horsemen, and mules for your resources. Ezekiel 27:13-14.

This refers to Tyre which represented people who possessed cognitions of celestial and spiritual things. As previously, 'Javan, Tubal, and Meshech' are various representative rites, that is, ones that correspond; and so also is 'Bethtogarmah'. The external rites of the former have regard to celestial things, but those of the latter, or Bethtogarmah, to spiritual things, as is clear from the meaning of the wares with which they traded. In this case Bethtogarmah is used in the genuine sense. In the same prophet,

Gomer and all on his Ranks; Bethtogarmah, the uttermost parts of the north, together with ale on his flanks. Ezekiel 38:6.

Here they stand for perverted matters of doctrine, which are also 'the uttermost parts of the north'. In this case Gomer and Bethtogarmah are used in the contrary sense.

3513. 'And I will eat' means in that way making it its own. This is clear from the meaning of 'eating' as being made one's own, dealt with in 2187, 2343, 3168, 3503. It is made its own when, by means of forms of pleasantness and delight, truths, that is, cognitions of good and truth, are instilled into the natural; and when these truths are allied to the good in the natural, communication is effected with the truth and good of the rational and so with the rational itself. It is this communication that the expression 'being made one's own' is used to describe, for those truths belong to the rational within the natural. Indeed truths in the rational are related to those in the natural in the way that individual parts are related to their general wholes. It is well known that a general whole is the product of its individual parts and that without the individual parts no general whole can be produced. It is the general whole produced from the individual parts belonging to the rational that is manifested in the natural. And being a general whole it takes a different form, doing so according to the order of the individual constituent parts, and so according to the form that results. If it is the more specific and the consequent individual parts of celestial good and spiritual truth that give form to the general whole within the natural, then it is a celestial and spiritual form that is presented, and something of heaven is represented as a kind of image in the specific parts constituting the general whole. But if the more specific and the individual parts which give form to the general whole within the natural do not consist of good and truth but of evil and falsity, something of hell is in that case represented as a kind of image in the specific parts constituting the general whole.

[2] Such are the things meant by eating and drinking in the Holy Supper, where again eating and drinking mean making one's own; that is to say, 'eating' means making good one's own and 'drinking' making truth one's own. If good, that is to say, love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour, gives form to the internal or rational man, and by way of this rational man gives form to a corresponding external or natural man, the person becomes in particular and in general an image of heaven, and therefore an image of the Lord. But if contempt for the Lord and for the good and truth of faith, and hatred towards the neighbour give form to the rational man, the person becomes in particular and in general an image of hell - the more so if at the same time he eats and drinks in a holy manner, for profanation then results. Consequently people who eat and drink worthily make eternal life their own, whereas those who do so unworthily make [eternal] death their own.