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A Double Portion Promise

by Autumn Dickson

I love the tangible. I love when Christ takes vast, spiritual concepts and puts them into human parables that help us better understand. Even if those earthly parables are imperfect in comparison to God’s plans for His children, they help me grasp things more solidly.

Biblical scholars argue whether Job was a real man or whether he is a piece of literature simply meant to teach us. Job may be a person who truly lived upon the earth, or he may be a parable. I have no idea whether Job was real, but I do know that the Lord uses physical things to help us better understand. All things are spiritual unto the Lord. The book of Job is no different. There are beautiful spiritual parallels to be drawn from Job.

Here is one of those spiritual parallels.

Job’s story begins with abundance. He has 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke (1,000 oxen), and 500 female donkeys. He has 7 sons and 3 daughters. His life implodes with a series of horrible trials, and he loses everything including his children.

Job remains faithful, and this is the end of his story:

Job 42:12-13

12 So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.

13 He had also seven sons and three daughters.

His material blessings from the Lord are doubled by the end. He also ends up with the same amount of children that he had before, 7 sons and 3 daughters.

I found myself asking, “If I knew the end from the beginning, would I voluntarily choose to experience what he experienced to double what I had?” My knee-jerk reaction is “HECK NO.” Not only would I never give up my current children, but I’m also a total wuss when it comes to pain. So no thank you. I’m happy with half of my potential riches. Seems plenty sufficient to me. I don’t know what to do with 1 sheep let alone 7,000, but I digress.

Interestingly enough, all things are spiritual to the Lord, and that’s actually exactly what we volunteered to do.

Before we came to earth, we lived in a beautiful place with a loving family. We were safe. It was wonderful, but Heavenly Father wanted to give us more. In order to give us more, we would need to choose to go down to earth and experience opposition. We would have to walk away from all of that goodness, but Heavenly Father also had some promises for us. He would give us a double portion, and we wouldn’t have to actually lose anything important (i.e. children) because we had a perfect older Brother who would take care of us.

And so we volunteered to experience pain in order to receive that double portion, and we held on to the promises that the most important things would be restored to us.

It is significant that Job had the same number of children. I don’t know if Job was real and if he truly lost 10 children, but the spiritual lesson is poignant. Heavenly Father can double all of these other wonderful resources, AND we don’t need to truly lose anything valuable. He didn’t double Job’s children like the first round was unimportant; the Lord restored what Job originally had.

A double portion of resources was likewise significant. It describes the Lord’s generosity and His willingness to overcompensate for anything we might have lost during our period of opposition. I truly believe that. I believe that anything I suffer here will pale in comparison to what He plans on giving me there, and I hold tightly to those promises. They fill me with peace.

Honestly, part of that double portion is peace, but it’s so much more than that as well.

Sure, the Lord is going to give us a heavenly place with all that we need. We will have resurrected bodies that never grow old and die, but we will have more than that. Job was given double the resources, but he was given something much better as well. He became the blessing. He levelled up. He became more like his Savior. This is a parable for us. We can be someone worth being. We can be resilient, wise, and strong. We can be powerful. We can know the truth deeply because we were given an opportunity to live the truth.

We can be prepared to serve as our Heavenly Father serves, which actually leads to another insight surrounding the idea of “double portions.”

A biblical double portion refers back to inheritance laws and traditions. The firstborn son always received a double portion. This was both an honor and a responsibility. That double portion was given so that the firstborn son could take care of the vulnerable members of the family.

When I picture heaven, I see a beautiful place with everything we could possibly ask for. I also see good people who take care of each other. It feels heavenly because we’re all friends and build a community. Heavenly Father is actually trying to give us more than a beautiful place. He is trying to give us eternal purpose so that our forever doesn’t feel meaningless and empty. He wants to give us responsibilities to serve the vulnerable who come after us. He wants to give us a double portion to serve, but He needs to know that He can trust us to stay strong through opposition just as He does.

There are far more layers and parallels to study in the book of Job, but one of those layers echoes the Plan of Salvation itself. Job began with abundance. He experienced opposition. He had his abundance restored and doubled, and he likewise came out of the experience as a better man.

I testify of a Heavenly Father who has a plan. I testify that He teaches His plans over and over and over throughout His word. We just have to find the patterns. I testify that He loves each of us and has the power to restore what’s most important as well as offering a double portion. He is good and wise and powerful, and He adores us. We can trust Him as we wait to get to the other side of the opposition.

 

Autumn Dickson was born and raised in a small town in Texas. She served a mission in the Indianapolis Indiana mission. She studied elementary education but has found a particular passion in teaching the gospel. Her desire for her content is to inspire people to feel confident, peaceful, and joyful about their relationship with Jesus Christ and to allow that relationship to touch every aspect of their lives. Autumn was the recipient of FAIR’s 2024 John Taylor Defender of the Faith Award.