Spending Quiet Time Alone with God

I recently read A Healing Touch: The Power of Prayer by Melanie Hemry. In it, she talks about when she was trying to discern what to do with her life as a young adult. She decided that she needed to listen to God and to do that she had to spend time just in his presence listening. She spend two hours a day sitting in a field every day just simply being with God until, finally, the answer came to her.

Most of us don't have the leisure time in our lives to be able to spend two hours in a field, but we all can spend some quiet time simply being in God's presence. I admit, this is hard for me. I am good at saying my prayers and offering up petitions and thanksgiving to God. I read Scripture and spiritual reading and reflect on it. This feels productive to me. It is much more difficult for me to simply quiet my mind and let God know I am listening. My spiritual director has been encouraging me to do this for years. I am finally trying. Right now, I'm only doing 5 minutes a day. I hope to eventually increase. If we spend all of our time doing the talking, then we aren't taking the time to listen. I'm trying to listen.