What Makes Our Father Happy?

What makes our Father happy?

How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind . . . feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. Psalm 36:7-8

God transcendent in heaven and immanent in all creation is supremely happy . . . always has been so, and forever will be.

ROBERT DUNCAN CULVER

GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE out of nothing. But he doesn’t create love, holiness, and happiness as separate entities. Rather, those ever-existing attributes emanate from his own nature.

Nine qualities are listed as the fruit of the Spirit, the first being love and the second joy (see Galatians 5:22-23). There is “joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). Jesus was “full of joy through the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21, NIV). Joy is not merely something God brings; joy is someone God is.

If we see God as happy, suddenly the command for us to “find your joy in him at all times” (Philippians 4:4, PHILLIPS) makes sense. God is saying, in essence, “Be as I am.” Paralleling “Be holy, because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16, NIV), the answer to the question “Why should God’s children be happy?” is “Because our Father is happy.” And his children should naturally bear his likeness.

In first-century Palestine, entering into someone’s home and happiness meant removing dirty sandals to bathe and put on clean clothes and then enjoy a delicious feast with a delightful host. Visualize an estate owner and host who somehow exists in three persons. Suppose his guests witness, with utter delight, these three persons enjoying each other with eternal and infinite happiness. Now imagine that the guests don’t just observe this delightful relationship but are invited to join it.

What we’ve just supposed is what God has actually done. Along with countless other sons and daughters of the King, we’ll celebrate God without end and be happy with him and in him.

Jonathan Edwards said, “The happiness of the Deity, as all other true happiness, consists in love and society.”^a In other words, the God who is three in one has always been engaged in happy relationships. He didn’t first enter into a happy society through creating and loving us—he already had that society, but he graciously includes us in his happiness.

In Zephaniah 3:14, God calls upon his people to be glad using four different Hebrew words that convey happiness: “Sing aloud [with joy, or rinnah^b], O daughter of Zion; shout [for joy, or ruah^c], O Israel! Rejoice [samach] and exult [alaz] with all your heart.”

The gladness described here is over the top—surely a God who isn’t happy would never call his people to such happiness. But three verses later, in Zephaniah 3:17, we see an even more remarkable statement, which also contains four happiness words. This time, however, all four terms are used not of God’s people but of God himself: “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice [sus] over you with gladness [simchah]; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you [gyl] with loud singing [rinnah].” There’s more of the happiness, tenderness, and love of God for us in this single verse than we can wrap our minds around. In fact, this understanding about God’s delight in us is the rock-solid foundation for the fourfold happiness he calls on his people to experience three verses earlier. We’re accustomed to thinking of God as angry or saddened by us. But here we’re told, four times over, of God’s happiness over us! Tozer said of this passage, “God is happy if nobody else is.”^d

While Zephaniah was speaking to his fellow Israelites, it’s no stretch to say that today’s believers, the church, are also God’s people. Certainly God’s nature hasn’t changed, so everything Zephaniah 3:17 says about God’s happiness remains true. As he rejoiced over Israel, he also rejoices over us.

This verse alone, even if there weren’t hundreds of others that affirm the same truth, should be sufficient to convince us that God is happy with us.

Father, thank you for being happy and creating us with the ability to enjoy that happiness with you. To think of you singing over us is mind boggling. Help us learn more about your happiness, and let it fill our minds and our hearts.