You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of Your presence and the pleasures of living with You forever. – Psalm 16:11 NLT
If you’ve been around Christian circles for any length of time, you may have heard variations of this phrase from well-meaning people: “God wants you to be holy more than He wants you to be happy.” I even had a friend once tell me they felt guilty for being happy because it seemed too self-focused and self-indulgent.
So what does the Bible have to say about happiness and joy for believers? Is there a difference between the two? And is it true that God doesn’t really care whether His children are happy, as long as they’re holy?
Happiness vs. Joy
The common cultural understanding of these two emotions is that one of them is fleeting, based on external circumstances, and can come and go at the drop of a hat (happiness), while the other is deeper, not dependent on circumstances, and long-lasting (joy).
But the Bible doesn’t make a distinction between the two; in fact, the terms happiness and joy are most often used in tandem or interchangeably (Esther 8:16; Proverbs 23:25; Jeremiah 31:13, along with more than a hundred other examples in the Bible). While they could be used for different purposes contextually, they are not fundamentally different. For the purposes of this article, they’ll be used interchangeably.
The Joy of God
So before we can even ask whether God wants us to be happy, we need to ask if God Himself is happy. Fortunately, when we look at the Bible, we find out pretty quickly that the answer is a resounding yes.
From the beginning, God has existed in three Persons—Father, Son, and Spirit—in perfect, complete, joyful communion. He lacked nothing and had no need to create or add anything to His existence. Yet when He made the heavens and the earth and everything in them, He recognized their goodness: “Then God looked over all He had made, and He saw that it was very good!” (Genesis 1:31 NLT). It could be said that God delighted, or found joy, in His creation.
Nehemiah 8:10 says, “Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the LORD is your strength!” (NLT).
Jesus, in John 15:11, says, “‘I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!’” (NLT).
1 Timothy 1:11 says, “...that comes from the glorious Good News entrusted to me by our blessed [or happy] God” (NLT).
God also finds joy in every single one of His children who turns to Him in repentance and surrender. Luke 15:7 says, “There is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!” (NLT).
God is not too holy to be happy; He is the holiest and happiest Being in all of creation.
God’s Joy In Us
As God’s image-bearers, we possess all the same attributes He has and experience all the same emotions that He does. So if joy is a quality of God’s character, why shouldn’t it be one of ours, too?
Psalm 51:12 says, “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation” (NLT). Our ultimate joy in life is that we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. We have received forgiveness of sins. We have a personal relationship with the God of the universe, made possible through Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. We’ll one day get to live with Him forever in His Kingdom. That is the Gospel, and it is our deep, eternal, unchanged-by-external-circumstances joy. Isaiah 52:7 even refers to the Gospel as “the good news of happiness” (ESV).
But there are countless other joys we’ll experience in this life, too. Some big things—getting married, having children, seeing a lifelong dream fulfilled, achieving our goals. And some small—eating a delicious meal, spotting our favorite flower while on a walk, listening to a beautiful piece of music. God is the Giver of these gifts, and as His beloved children living in His good (though still fallen) world, we should be seeking and finding happiness in all sorts of ways, as often as we can.
When we find joy in our salvation, in obeying God’s Word, following His will, spending time in His presence, and serving others, when we delight in the life that God’s given us, we beautifully image our joyful Creator.
Happy and Holy
Make no mistake: God cares deeply about our holiness. As followers of Christ, we are called to die to ourselves and our own desires daily (Luke 9:23; Galatians 2:20; Galatians 5:24) and be formed more and more into His image (a process called sanctification). Our happiness should never come at the expense of our holiness. There are many worldly things we could find joy in that are outside God’s design for human flourishing and, though they might feel good in the moment, would harm us in the long run. We should be careful to avoid those things at all costs.
But God wants us to take pleasure in the life He’s given us—within the good boundaries He’s set in His Word—in both big and small ways.
God wants us to be happy and holy.
