Even with the help from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, this was a difficult travel devotional to write because I was tying what Bede wrote to a place and then to the Bible. It was a challenge but a fun one, as is this epilogue.

Challenges on the Bede Travel Devotional

If you were wondering why the devotionals were not coming daily, that was it. I couldn’t get them done in time. There was too much pressure in the system.

Also, I had to work remotely more on this trip at my day job than I have in the past on these travel devotionals. But as always, I trusted by praying and seeking the Lord’s guidance that what I was writing was having a positive impact somewhere with somebody for the kingdom. Like Bede, I wrote because I felt called to write.

As with most of our travel devotionals, there were some misses, probably the biggest being the failure to visit Jarrow, England. After all, that is where Bede lived and worked, and there is much to see there related to his life. It was only 20 miles beyond Durham, but there just wasn’t enough time. Like Cuthbert’s cave, it will have to wait until next time.

We were also more than a little concerned about the government shutdown in the States that threatened to delay our flight leaving and cancelling our flight on return. As it turned out, it had no effect of on us, except that we arrived hours early for our departing flight and spent a little more time in the lounge where we ran into an attorney friend of mine.

It was divine appointment of sorts and a further reminder to be concerned primarily with the day at hand. Just as Constantine couldn’t have known what the events of that day in 306 A.D. would mean to him and the history of the kingdom of God on earth, rarely do we know in real time.

Another Bede and Cuthbert miracle?

As I mentioned, the Aggies beat Missouri after Ann prayed at Durham Cathedral. Then the following Saturday, after we returned to the States, in one of the greatest comebacks in college football history Texas A&M rallied from a 30-3 halftime deficit to beat South Carolina 31-30.

Ann insists when she knelt at the tombs of Bede and Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral she was praying to Jesus, but regardless, it begs the question: Will this be the year the Aggies run the table and become national champions.

If so, will another miracle be attributed to Bede and Cuthbert, further cementing their designations as saints?

Only time will tell.

Parting thoughts from the Venerable Bede

Bede wrote of England becoming a Christian nation.

The Picts also at this time are at peace with the English nation, and rejoice in being united in peace and truth with the whole Catholic Church. The Scots that inhabit Britain, satisfied with their own territories, meditate no hostilities against the nation of the English. . . .

Such being the peaceable and calm disposition of the times, many of the Northumbrians, as well of the nobility as private persons, laying aside their weapons, rather incline to dedicate both themselves and their children to the tonsure and monastic vows, than to study martial discipline. What will be the end hereof, the next age will show.

Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Bk. V, Chp. XXIII

Jesus solved the problem with the Picts that Hadrian couldn’t solve with his wall. England became a Christian nation, and then all that was threatened by the pagan Vikings for nearly two hundred years as they overran England. But then the Vikings were converted, and the gospel prevailed again.

What we can take away

Such are the ebbs and flows of history. The work of the Kingdom must be done by each new generation. Those who complain today about England becoming a Muslim nation through immigration should stop complaining and start sharing the gospel with their new Muslim neighbors.

Whether the Kingdom is waning or waxing in any nation is ultimately dependent on whether the Church, the earthly bodily manifestation of Jesus, is sharing the gospel.

“Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”

Mark 16:15

That is always and ultimately the answer. And this principle holds true throughout history: if the citizens of the kingdom of God are not faithful in taking the gospel to the nations, the Lord will be faithful in bringing the nations to citizens of the kingdom, and perhaps not always on the most inviting terms.

So ends our Bede-led travel devotional to England. I hope you have enjoyed following as much as I have enjoyed writing it. GS