Happy or Holy: What Does God Want for Us?

Will Weedon has written a post that makes an important point.  I give it here in entirety:

I've been hammering home at St. Paul's of late: the Lord doesn't want you to be happy; He wants you to be holy.  "For this is the will of God, your sanctification."  Last night Judy asked: does He want us to be both?  I thought about it and replied: He wants us to be holy so that we may be truly blessed; and blessedness is even better than happiness.  I'd stand by that: blessedness doesn't ride on the ups and downs of our emotions.  It rises above them.  And since God often uses adversity and trials to give us growth in holiness (yes, holiness is given you whole and entire in your Baptism, but I refer to growing up into the salvation that is yours), there are times of sadness that come our way on this path toward the fuller inner appropriation of that holiness which results in blessedness.  Anywho, the big point is that our deceitful hearts way too often tell us that "God wants us to be happy" and take that to mean: "God can't mean that I shouldn't engage in this sin - because I am finding happiness in doing so!"  Wrong.  Just wrong.

In spite of what culture or others have taught, happiness is not the antithesis of holiness.  Only walking in fellowship with the Father, as it is made available through the redemptive work of the son in the power of the Holy Spirit, can men and women be fully content, resulting in happiness as we see the Lord work in and through both us and others.