Can God’s Creatures Tap Into His Triune Happiness?

Can God’s creatures tap into his triune happiness?

From everlasting to everlasting you are God. Psalm 90:2

Christians throughout the ages have said that by contemplating the Trinity they have found the ultimate essence, expression, and exercise of happiness. JAMES HOUSTON

SINCE THE TRIUNE GOD had no beginning, neither did his happiness. Had God first experienced happiness at a particular point in time, we couldn’t know whether his happiness would continue a million years from now. We would be left to wonder, What if God was happy once and maybe still is, but one day he no longer will be?

If we combine the doctrine of God’s happiness with the doctrine of his immutability (his unchangeable nature), we’ll understand that he must always remain happy. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

Since God’s nature doesn’t change, we needn’t fear that one day his happiness will wane or disappear. On the contrary, once sin, the enemy of happiness, is forever conquered, the happiness of God now evident in this world will expand exponentially and overwhelm us with its constant, pervasive brightness. When that day comes, we’ll never need to try to be happy again—we’ll be incapable of anything less.

God’s happiness in us and our happiness in him are inseparable. We’re all familiar with the question, What do you give the person who has everything? Who better fits that description than God? Yet we’re told we can please God, delight him, and make him happy. God made us in his likeness. Doesn’t it follow that just as I’m happy to give my wife, Nanci, my family, and my friends what makes them happy, so God is happy when his gifts make us happy?

I am convinced God makes his creatures happy and is made happy by their happiness. Think this through with me as I illustrate. I look out my kitchen window and watch our golden retriever, Maggie, play in the yard, her eyes wide and her nose to the ground, as if she expects something wonderful to appear. Then suddenly she stops and stares at something. It’s a thick branch from a rhododendron she’s been happily tearing to pieces.

Maggie pounces on this treasure, then marches around the yard with her prize, strutting like a conquering hero. If you asked me to describe my dog’s state of mind, I would say, “Happy.” From head to tail, she shows clear evidence that her delight is heartfelt.

When Nanci gets out Maggie’s leash, it’s a sight to behold. She gleefully runs in circles (Maggie, not Nanci—though Nanci is happy too). Maggie can’t wait for her beloved owner to take her outside. During their walk, they enter into each other’s joy, feeding off the happiness of the one they love.

As God sees us from Heaven, doesn’t he delight in us the way Nanci and I delight in Maggie? The fact that God is infinitely smarter and greater than we are doesn’t diminish his ability to find pleasure in us any more than our superior intelligence or worth interferes with our enjoyment of Maggie.

While there’s a major difference between humans and animals, my dog and I have a common source for our happiness capacity: our Creator. God is the source of his own happiness and ours, and as his image bearers, both our capacity for happiness and our desire for it are modeled after his.

Scripture makes it plain that we are indwelt with two of the three persons of the Godhead, and by inference, we are indwelt with the third. This means that within us we have the triune God and his eternally joyous interrelationship. This is an astounding reality—we’ve been brought into an ancient and transcendent circle of happiness before and above all others. If we contemplated this truth daily, wouldn’t it infuse our lives with wonder and delight?

We should recognize, welcome, and tap into that joy. It’s one thing to understand that God is happy. But as great a beginning as that is, believing in a happy God who is not distant but always with us and interested in our lives is better still. If we’re convinced he is in us, enjoying the eternal happiness of his interrelationship in his triune self, this engages us in a circle of gladness that defies comprehension.

Jesus prayed, “I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (John 17:23). The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are infinitely greater than we are, yet they share their love and happiness, enter into our happiness, and empower us to enter into theirs.

Who better than the triune God, who has always known happiness, to offer us, in him, the happiness we so deeply crave and could never experience on our own?

God, you who are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are the source of all that is good and delightful, and all we need in order to be eternally happy. When we start chasing after things that won’t last or bring us eternal happiness, remind us that all happiness comes from your hand. Where else but to you should we go to find it?