4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
When you imagine God, is he happy? I realize that is a strange question. After all, one does not get divine emojis on your messaging app. If you do, I really want to talk to you. But the question is not entirely without a reason. When I used to ask this question of my students, I often heard them say that they imagined God as stern, glowering, or disappointed in them. God was not happy, but unhappy with the world. They sort of imagined that while they were going to heaven, it was not because God was happy about it. He was letting them in on a technicality. They were slipping in the back gate, almost as if they were being allowed in by a weary God resigned to their sinfulness. God was disappointed in them.
But I think God is happy. More importantly, I think He is happy with you. He is happy because Jesus has died, risen, and thereby reconciled His creation to Himself. The sin of humanity could not take God’s joy away. Being joyful or happy is a perfect state of being, and God is perfect. If God was unhappy, he would be unhappy for a reason. Something would not be good or right. That would be incomplete or imperfect. But God is God, and there is no problem or deficiency beyond His remedy. In Jesus He has remedied every problem. So, God is happy, and He is happy with you!
As I noted above, we don’t have a strong indication of God’s emotional state, if one can even say that God has an emotional state. But this odd little exercise is important because you will become like the God you worship. If you imagine him to be stern, judgmental, and disappointed in you, your worship will draw you toward being like that. You will tend toward being stern and judgmental. On the other hand, if you worship a joyful God, you too can and will have joy. Paul exhorts us to joy today. He does so because God is smiling. God is always smiling. Jesus has risen from the dead. Rejoice with God today.