There is a grim contrast between the two halves of this verse. The
former shows us the backslider in heart as filled 'with his own ways.'
He gets weary with satiety; with his doings he 'will be sick of them';
and the things which at first delighted will finally disgust and be
done without zest. There is nothing sadder than the gloomy faces often
seen in the world's festivals. But, on the other hand, the godly man
will be satisfied from within. This is no Stoical proclamation of
self-sufficingness. Self by itself satisfies no man, but self, become
the abiding-place of God, does satisfy. A man alone is like 'the chaff
which the wind driveth away'; but, rooted in God, he is 'like a tree
planted by the rivers of water, whose leaf does not wither.' He has
found all that he needs. God is no longer without him but within; and
he who can say, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,' has
within him the secret of peace and the source of satisfaction which
can never say 'I thirst.' Such an inward self, in which God dwells and
through which His sweet presence manifests itself in the renewed
nature, sets man free from all dependence for blessedness on
externals. We hang on them and are in despair if we lose them, because
we have not the life of God within us. He who has such an indwelling,
and he only, can truly say, 'All my possessions I carry with me.' Take
him and strip from him, film after film, possessions, reputation,
friends; hack him limb from limb, and as long as there is body enough
left to keep life in him, he can say, 'I have all and abound.' 'Ye
took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions, knowing that ye have
your own selves for a better possession.'