Every day is a messenger from God.

            — Russian Proverb

I met an angel today.

The early morning air was crisp, the sun radiant, the colors vivid and the path frozen. I was on my mountain bike—first time on the trails this season and it was great. I was crawling up the hills, flying down the slopes and feeling God’s pleasure. Thankful.

As I ground my way up another incline I was smiling, sweating, panting, talking to myself, praying to Jesus, and thinking about the heroes of the faith like Enoch, Noah, Moses, David, Mary, Peter, and the Apostle Paul. They all walked with God, and I want to walk with God too. With each push of the pedal my mind and heart whirled . . . Am I walking with you God? I want to. I’m trying to, but am I? How can I walk with you?

And then it happened, I met an angel, a messenger from God.

I was chugging around a sharp corner near the top of yet another glorious hill when I encountered a very large man (I mean NFL linebacker large) wearing a white, long-sleeved shirt with the words BLESSED MAN emblazoned across the front in fluorescent green lettering. He was tromping down the hill, I was gasping up the hill, and as we squeezed past one another he said in a loud voice, “Keep it up!”

And that was it. I heard from God.

At the angelic exhortation, “Keep it up!” my mind went to Paul’s words in Philippians 3:13-14:

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (NIV)

My goal is to walk with God. I am reading the Scriptures daily, praying constantly, guarding my heart, leaning into loving others and obeying the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and in the words, “keep it up!” I clearly heard Jesus say, “press on” in your walk with God.

And then there were those words, BLESSED MAN, which led me to Psalm 1 where it says, “Blessed is the man who walks . . . [and delights] in the law of the Lord” (NKJV). The “law of the Lord” is the Word of God and in John 1 it says that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Word of God is Jesus! And my question, "How can I walk with you?" was answered, “Blessed is the man … whose delight is in Jesus.”

I met an angel on the trail today and I heard from God.

It was a great ride and a beautiful morning—the blue sky majestic, the snow-capped mountains brilliant, and the rustic sagebrush soothing, but of all the sights I saw this morning the one that stands out the most is fluorescent green.