Does God Want Us To Be Happy?

Happiness is an emotion arising from an inner conviction that all is right with our world. It is a sense of well-being, joy, or contentment. Everyone wants to be happy, but happiness, as our ultimate goal, can be elusive. People may make decisions based on what they think will make them happy, then experience despair when happiness never comes. People who assume that God wants them to be happy may justify activities clearly prohibited in the Bible by arguing that such choices are necessary for happiness. But is our personal happiness God’s ultimate goal for us? Does He even want us to be happy?

We were created by God in His image, and it is His design that creates our innate desire to be happy. We know happiness is possible because God is happy, and we are like Him. When God created the first man and woman, He placed them in a garden and filled it with everything they needed to be happy (Genesis 1:29–30; 2:8–9). But they fell for the lie that happiness is contingent upon having everything they wanted (Genesis 3:1–6). Their failure to acknowledge God as their Source of happiness led to sin and banishment from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:23–24). From that day on, humanity has struggled to regain the sense of happiness that Adam and Eve experienced in the presence of God.

God wants us to be happy but not at any cost. His goals for us are higher, broader, and more lasting than fleeting happiness (Isaiah 55:9). In fact, the pursuit of happiness is not a theme of the New Testament. Instead, we find repeated commands to deny self (Mark 8:34), take up a cross (Luke 9:23), and consider oneself dead to sin (Romans 6:6–7). These instructions may appear contradictory to the idea that God wants us to be happy. How can we be happy when we must choose the opposite of what we desire?

Spiritual laws are as real as physical laws, and there is a spiritual law governing happiness. God’s path to happiness goes a different direction from the path we would naturally choose. Sinful actions can usually be traced to one foundational lie: that we will be happier if we do this thing. But God says, “How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers!” (Psalm 1:1, CSB). God delights in confounding the wise by using foolish things to accomplish His purposes, weak things to shame the strong, and lowly and despised things to magnify His glory (1 Corinthians 1:27–28). The psalmist says that we are happiest when we are delighting in God’s promises and commandments (Psalm 112:1).

God wants us to be happy, but the temporary thrill sin provides is not true happiness. Sin can produce feelings of happiness as long as we are getting what we want. Losing our temper produces a brief feeling of happiness because we get to let off steam. But the consequences—broken relationships and wounded loved ones—are not happy (Proverbs 29:22). Sexual immorality produces brief feelings of happiness but its end—shame, hurt, unwanted pregnancy, alienation from God—is not happy (1 Corinthians 6:18). The pursuit of money can produce feelings of happiness as long as the stock market is up and thieves stay away (Hebrews 13:5; Matthew 6:19; 1 Timothy 6:10)—but many who sit enthroned on piles of money attest to a sense of emptiness. The world is full of people who pursued their own dreams but are not happy.

Augustine of Hippo rightly stated in his fourth-century book Confessions, “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” The truth is there is a “God-shaped vacuum” in the heart of every person, and that void can only be filled by God through Christ, not by any created thing. Happiness is a gift from God that can be fully known only in proper relationship with Him.

God does want us to be happy, and He has provided all we need for life and godliness through Christ Jesus (2 Peter 1:2). He has designed the human heart to experience its greatest ecstasy in worship, its deepest satisfaction in serving, and its greatest love through the power of the Holy Spirit. When we are living in fellowship with Him, we can expect to be happy regardless of our temporary circumstances (Philippians 4:11–13). Our goal is the prize awaiting us in eternity, so we can endure earthly difficulties while remaining full of hope (2 Corinthians 4:17). When our joy and hope are based on that which cannot be taken away, we have found true happiness, and God is pleased.

Recommended Resource: Laugh Again, Experience Outrageous Joy by Charles Swindoll

Can I Live Without GOD?

Contrary to the claims of atheists and agnostics through the centuries, man cannot live without God. Man can have a mortal existence without acknowledging God, but not without the fact of God.

As the Creator, God originated human life. To say that man can exist apart from God is to say that a watch can exist without a watchmaker or a story can exist without a storyteller. We owe our being to the God in whose image we are made (Genesis 1:27). Our existence depends on God, whether we acknowledge His existence or not.

As the Sustainer, God continuously confers life (Psalm 104:10-32). He is life (John 14:6), and all creation is held together by the power of Christ (Colossians 1:17). Even those who reject God receive their sustenance from Him: “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). To think that man can live without God is to suppose a sunflower can continue to live without light or a rose without water.

As the Savior, God gives eternal life to those who believe. In Christ is life, which is the light of men (John 1:4). Jesus came that we may have life “and have it to the full” (John 10:10). All who place their trust in Him are promised eternity with Him (John 3:15-16). For man to live—truly live—he must know Christ (John 17:3).

Without God, man has physical life only. God warned Adam and Eve that on the day they rejected Him they would “surely die” (Genesis 2:17). As we know, they did disobey, but they did not die physically that day; rather, they died spiritually. Something inside them died—the spiritual life they had known, the communion with God, the freedom to enjoy Him, the innocence and purity of their soul—it was all gone.

Adam, who had been created to live and fellowship with God, was cursed with a completely carnal existence. What God had intended to go from dust to glory now was to go from dust to dust. Just like Adam, the man without God today still functions in an earthly existence. Such a person may seem to be happy; after all, there is enjoyment and pleasure to be had in this life. But even those enjoyments and pleasures cannot be fully received without a relationship with God.

Some who reject God live lives of diversion and merriment. Their fleshly pursuits seem to yield a carefree and gratified existence. The Bible says there is a certain measure of delight to be had in sin (Hebrews 11:25). The problem is that it is temporary; life in this world is short (Psalm 90:3-12). Sooner or later, the hedonist, like the prodigal son in the parable, finds that worldly pleasure is unsustainable (Luke 15:13-15).

Not everyone who rejects God is an empty pleasure-seeker, however. There are many unsaved people who live disciplined, sober lives—happy and fulfilled lives, even. The Bible presents certain moral principles which will benefit anyone in this world—fidelity, honesty, self-control, etc. But, again, without God man has only this world. Getting smoothly through this life is no guarantee that we are ready for the afterlife. See the parable of the rich farmer in Luke 12:16-21 and Jesus’ exchange with the rich (but very moral) young man in Matthew 19:16-23.

Without God, man is unfulfilled, even in his mortal life. Man is not at peace with his fellow man because he is not at peace with himself. Man is restless with himself because he has no peace with God. The pursuit of pleasure for pleasure’s sake is a sign of inner turmoil. Pleasure seekers throughout history have found over and over that the temporary diversions of life give way to a deeper despair. The nagging feeling that “something is wrong” is hard to shake off. King Solomon gave himself to a pursuit of all this world has to offer, and he recorded his findings in the book of Ecclesiastes.

Solomon discovered that knowledge, in and of itself, is futile (Ecclesiastes 1:12-18). He found that pleasure and wealth are futile (2:1-11), materialism is folly (2:12-23), and riches are fleeting (chapter 6).

Solomon concludes that life is God’s gift (3:12-13) and the only wise way to live is to fear God: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (12:13-14).

In other words, there is more to life than the physical dimension. Jesus stresses this point when He says, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Not bread (the physical) but God’s Word (the spiritual) keeps us alive. It is useless for us to search within ourselves for the cure to all our miseries. Man can only find life and fulfillment when he acknowledges God.

Without God, man’s destiny is hell. The man without God is spiritually dead; when his physical life is over, he faces eternal separation from God. In Jesus’ narrative of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), the rich man lives a pleasurable life of ease without a thought of God, while Lazarus suffers through his life but knows God. It is after their deaths that both men truly comprehend the gravity of the choices they made in life. The rich man realized, too late, that there is more to life than the pursuit of wealth. Meanwhile, Lazarus is comforted in paradise. For both men, the short duration of their earthly existence paled in comparison to the permanent state of their souls.

Man is a unique creation. God has set a sense of eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11), and that sense of timeless destiny can only find its fulfillment in God Himself.

Recommended Resource: Hard Questions, Real Answers by William Lane Craig

Why does God allow the innocent to suffer?

There is so much suffering in the world, and it is felt by everyone to one degree or another. Sometimes, people suffer as the direct result of their own poor choices, sinful actions, or willful irresponsibility; in those cases, we see the truth of Proverbs 13:15, “The way of the treacherous is their ruin” (ESV). But what about the victims of the treachery? What about the innocent who suffer? Why would God allow that? 

It is human nature to try to find a correlation between bad behavior and bad circumstances and, conversely, between good behavior and blessings. The desire to link sin to suffering is so strong that Jesus dealt with the issue at least twice. “As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus” (John 9:1–3). The disciples made the mistake of assuming that the innocent would never suffer and assigned personal guilt to the blind man (or to his parents). Jesus corrected their thinking, saying, “This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (verse 3). The man’s blindness was not the result of personal sin; rather, God had a higher purpose for the suffering.

Another time, Jesus commented on the deaths of some people killed in an accident: “Those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:4–5). In this case, Jesus again discounted the notion that tragedy and suffering are the result of personal sin. At the same time, Jesus emphasized the fact that we live in a world full of sin and its effects; therefore, everyone must repent.

This brings us to the consideration of whether such a thing as “the innocent,” technically speaking, even exists. According to the Bible, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Therefore, no one is “innocent” in the sense of being sinless. We were all born with a sinful nature, inherited from Adam. And, as we’ve already seen, everyone suffers, regardless of whether or not the suffering can be linked to a specific personal sin. Sin’s effects permeate everything; the world is fallen, and all creation suffers as a result (Romans 8:22).

Most heartbreaking of all is the suffering of a child. Children are as close to innocence as we ever see in this world, and for them to suffer is truly tragic. Sometimes, innocent children suffer because of the sin of others: neglect, abuse, drunk driving, etc. In those cases, we can definitely say that suffering is the result of personal sin (just not theirs), and we learn the lesson that our sin always affects others around us. Other times, innocent children suffer because of what some might call “acts of God”: natural disasters, accidents, childhood cancer, etc. Even in those cases, we can say that suffering is the result of sin, generally speaking, because we live in a sinful world.

The good news is that God did not leave us here to suffer pointlessly. Yes, the innocent suffer (see Job 1–2), but God can redeem that suffering. Our loving and merciful God has a perfect plan to use that suffering to accomplish His threefold purpose. First, He uses pain and suffering to draw us to Himself so that we will cling to Him. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). Trials and distress are not something unusual in life; they are part of what it means to be human in a fallen world. In Christ we have an anchor that holds fast in all the storms of life, but, if we never sail into those storms, how would we know that? It is in times of despair and sorrow that we reach out to Him, and, if we are His children, we always find Him there waiting to comfort and uphold us through it all. In this way, God proves His faithfulness to us and ensures that we will stay close to Him. An added benefit is that as we experience God’s comfort through trials, we are then able to comfort others in the same way (2 Corinthians 1:4).

Second, He proves to us that our faith is real through the suffering and pain that are inevitable in this life. How we respond to suffering, especially when we are innocent of wrongdoing, is determined by the genuineness of our faith. Those with faith in Jesus, “the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:2), will not be crushed by suffering but will come through the trial with their faith intact, having been “tested by fire” so that it “may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7, ESV). The faithful do not shake their fists at God or question His goodness; rather, they “consider it pure joy” (James 1:2), knowing that trials prove that they are truly the children of God. “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12).

Finally, God uses suffering to take our eyes off this world and turn them to the next. The Bible continually exhorts us to not get caught up in the things of this world but to look forward to the world to come. The innocent suffer in this world, but this world and all that is in it will pass away; the kingdom of God is eternal. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), and those who follow Him do not see the things of this life, good or bad, as the end of the story. Even the sufferings we endure, as terrible as they can be, “are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

Could God prevent all suffering? Of course He could. But He assures us that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28, KJV). Suffering—even the suffering of the innocent—is part of the “all things” that God is using to accomplish His good purposes, ultimately. His plan is perfect, His character is flawless, and those who trust Him will not be disappointed.

Recommended Resource: Everything Happens for a Reason? God’s Purposes in a World Gone Bad by Paul Enns