I just received an email from Pam Willingham, who is awesome, and she asked me for my thoughts on this topic:
* The importance of making the choice to sit with God, listen to God, hear God, praise God.
* Distractions in a woman's life that often interfere with making the choice to spend time with God.
* Discipline's that can help make the choice to spend time with God easier.

This is such a tough topic to teach on, because everyone I know walking with the Lord struggles with this. I used to shame myself and feel guilty for how much I struggled to spend time with God. I do love Him, my life doesn't make sense without Him, shouldn't I WANT to be with Him all the time? I felt like I had no right to come to Him when I was hurting because I didn't come to Him when things were good, so what right did I have to ask for help when I wouldn't praise Him in the sunny parts? Then it occurred to me that he might be using the valleys in my life to pull me close to Him. Not that He would send pain to force me back to Him. I realize that God isn't mean, and He isn't petty like human friends sometimes can be, but that he wouldn't leave me out to dry when I was in pain, and maybe loneliness and sorrow was God calling me to spend time with Him. That He is the great need-meeter of those things!
My point is, this realization helped me discover a new discipline. I began to practice seeing the sacred in everyday things. Instead of setting aside an hour here or shower time or car time or whatever, I challenged myself to walk through my day watching for Him around me. I would practice being thankful for my many senses, and the idea of beds, and really good coffee. I thanked Him for Mexico when I had really good guacamole or I would wonder about the life connected to the voice at the other end of the little bank bullet carrying my deposit slip. It was almost a game, where I would challenge myself with new ways to see Him in the world around me instead of just that little chair in the corner of my living room where my Bible and notebook live. The problem is, you begin to sound a little crazy when you voice things like, "Isn't chocolate a really good idea on God's part? I mean, we don't need it - it's just for our pleasure! What a kind gift is the cocoa plant!" Or speculating on the generosity of the color spectrum, how we would have been just fine with everything in black and white, never knowing what we are missing (which begs the question, what colors still await us?). That may not make any sense at all, but I'm sitting here listening to the AC guy bang around in my attic, and I'm just thankful for temperature and the blessing of having both hot and cold, because everything at 72 degrees would have gotten so boring and so much less pleasurable. We would have missed out on ice cream and hot chocolate and jacuzzis, not to mention great coffee...