Is God’s Happiness Confined To Heaven?

Is God’s happiness confined to Heaven?

Well done, good and faithful servant! . . . Come and share your master’s happiness! Matthew 25:23, NIV

The God of salvation, the God of the Covenant, is to be worshipped with joy! He is the happy God and He loves happy worshippers. CHARLES SPURGEON

NINETEENTH-CENTURY British preacher Charles Spurgeon faced many difficulties, including painful illnesses, his wife’s immobility, and theological controversies. But nothing hurt him more deeply than what happened when he was preaching, as a twenty-two-year-old, to twelve thousand people. Someone yelled “Fire,” though there was none. Seven people were trampled to death, and twenty-eight others were seriously injured. His closest friends said he never fully got over that tragedy. Spurgeon said, “Although my joy is greater than the most of men, my depression of spirit is such as few can have an idea of.”^a

But instead of listening to his depression, he listened to Scripture. Spurgeon wrote,

Because he lives, I shall live also, and I spring to my legs again and fight with my depressions of spirit and my down castings, and get the victory through it; and so may you do, and so you must, for there is no other way of escaping from it. In your most depressed seasons you are to get joy and peace through believing.^b

Norman Cousins gave an amazing account of the therapeutic value of laughter in his book Anatomy of an Illness.^c Diagnosed with an untreatable terminal disease, his chance for recovery was one in five hundred.

Cousins believed that worry, depression, and anger had contributed to his illness. So he immersed himself in laughter, watching the Marx Brothers and other funny movies. He found that laughing for ten minutes relieved his pain for several hours. Eventually he made a full recovery and lived another twenty years. Cousins was convinced the laughter and his sustained focus on the bright side caused healing.

I find this story impossible to explain from a naturalistic worldview. Did this powerful, heart-energizing, body-healing thing called laughter come from random chemicals, protons, and neutrons? Can natural selection and survival of the fittest account for humor, laughter, and happiness?

Or are humor and laughter gifts to us? And if they’re gifts, where could they originate but in God? And if God gives us the gifts of humor and laughter in this fallen world, what does it tell us about God himself?

Jonathan Edwards offered this succinct answer: “It is no defect in a fountain that it is prone to overflow.”^d God is a creator. But he doesn’t create to be happy. Rather, he creates because he is happy. And that’s what makes Heaven happy.

One of my Bible college professors often shared illustrations of Christ’s presence in the small events of his day. As a student, I asked myself why those things didn’t happen to me. As time passed, God showed me that in fact they did—I just hadn’t noticed!

Since God is sovereign even in life’s smallest events, shouldn’t we think of leaves falling from trees, the rabbit bounding across a trail, the old friend we greet in the store, or the unexpected word of encouragement as further proof of God’s happy and pleasure-giving nature?

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) wrote in Les Misérables, “The supreme happiness of life consists in the conviction that one is loved.”^e The greater the person who loves us, the greater our happiness. That’s why every child of God should fixate on biblical promises such as, “No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39, NLT).

Though God grieves over the pain we experience here on Earth, he knows his perfect plan will prove best. He radiates love toward his children and patience toward the unsaved, yet he’s angry at sin. He who was happy before the world began will be happy in the world to come, and he is happy now.

Our worldview is transformed when we realize that God wants us to share in his happiness—now and forever!

Nanci and I know the delight of sharing each other’s happiness and that of our family and dear friends during vacations and reunions. Years later, those happy times still have the power to yield warm memories. But why should we think these wonderfully happy times are limited to our human relationships? If we believe Scripture, we can reverently seek to enjoy happiness and laughter with God himself.

I often remind myself that God is always with me. He wants us to know we can be happy both in him and with him—not only after we die, but as we live today. When I’m alone, whether I’m meditating or reading or looking at photos or watching a movie, any happiness or laughter I experience is a laugh I share with God because in fact, I am not alone!

John Bunyan (1628–1688), while imprisoned in the 1600s for preaching the gospel, wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress—widely considered the most influential piece of literature other than the Bible. He said, “God is the chief good. . . . He is in himself most happy . . . and all true happiness is only to be found in God, as that which is essential to his nature.”^f To Bunyan, human happiness is inseparable from God and impossible unless God himself is happy. An unhappy God would never value nor assure the everlasting happiness of his creatures. We would never ask for grace from an ungracious God, kindness from an unkind God, or happiness from an unhappy God. It would be like asking a poor man for a million dollars. He can’t give what he doesn’t have.

If God were not happy, the fact that everyone seeks happiness would be a cruel tragedy, since it would mean that God cannot give us what we most deeply desire. At best he might deliver us from the miseries of Hell. But Heaven can overflow with happiness only if God himself overflows with happiness.

Our Creator’s happiness guarantees a happy ending to the story that will never end.

Lord, we love that you are a happy Creator God! You give us hope for a future where you wipe away our tears and heal all our relationships, and where our laughter and joy will be as unending as yours. May we sense your happy presence with us here and now . . . even in the midst of life’s greatest difficulties. Remind us that this is not the end of the story and that your blood-bought promise is to make all things right forever.