What summons beckon you in 2014? If you are like most folks, lots of things run through your mind.

Of all the options you weigh, consider this from Scottish churchman and hymn writer, Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), among, if not the most important of them:

Be much alone with God. Do not put Him off with a quarter of an hour morning and evening. Take time to get thoroughly acquainted. Converse over everything with Him. Unbosom yourself wholly,—every thought, feeling, wish, plan, doubt,—to Him. He wants converse with His creatures; shall His creatures not want converse with Him? He wants, not merely to be on “good terms” with you, if one may use man’s phrase, but to be intimate; shall you decline the intimacy, and be satisfied with mere acquaintance? What! Intimate with the world, with friends, with neighbors, with politicians, with philosophers, with naturalists, or with poets; but not with God? That would look ill indeed. Folly, to prefer the clay to the potter, the marble to the sculptor, this little earth and its lesser creatures to the mighty Maker of the universe, the great “All and in all!”

Might you resolve to spend more time alone with God this coming year than in any previous one of your life? If so, you will never regret it.