God’s totally positive and lasting way of removing our shortcomings is to fill up the hole with something much better, more luminous, and more satisfying. Then our old shortcomings are not driven away, or pushed underground, as much as they are exposed and starved as the false programs for happiness that they are. Like used scaffolding, our sins fall away from us as unneeded and unhelpful because now a new and better building has been found.
This is the wondrous discovery of our True Self, and the gradual deterioration of our false and constructed self. When we learn what good food is, we are simply no longer attracted to junk food. We don’t need to crusade against greasy burgers and fries, because we just ignore them. They become uninteresting as we happily search out the whole, organic, fresh, and healthy markets. All spiritual rewards are inherent, not rewards that are given later. Take that as a trustworthy axiom. Not “heaven later” as much as “health now,” which prepares us for—and becomes—heaven later!
—from the book Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps by Richard Rohr