A few days ago, as my wife and I hunched over our computer, uneasily assessing its recalcitrant rumble, we became attuned to the sound of surreptitious munching from the kitchen. It was our three year-old, Isaac, of course, who must not — under any circumstances — be left alone in the kitchen. “Isaac!” called my wife. “It’s time to stop snacking. We’re going to eat dinner soon.”

“What?” It was a thin and disingenuous reply.

“I said stop snacking!”

Quiet. A muffled munch. “What?”

“Isaac!”

The little sinner stuck his head around the kitchen doorway. His cheeks were full. “What?”

It’s helpful to understand that Isaac was about forty feet away from us at this point. My wife decided to experiment. Quietly — not in a whisper but something close to it — she said, “Would you like some ice cream?”

This boy, who moments before could not hear his mother’s startlingly accurate rendition of a longshoreman’s bellow, suddenly possessed a sensitive listening capacity that would make the CIA proud. He jumped into the air and shouted, “Ice cream!” He did his happy ice-cream dance across the living room and to his mother’s side in our office. “Ice cream,” he told me exuberantly. He rubbed his snack-sticky palms together. “Ice cream.”

“Perhaps after dinner,” said his mother. “But right now you need to stop snacking.”

Isaac looked up at her, his radiant visage once again puzzled. “What?”

And that’s how it is with us, isn’t it? Though the truth is written on our hearts, how often do we stand still in the presence of God’s call, mumbling: What? Just speak a little louder, Lord. Give me a sign. Of course I’m willing to abandon all for you, but can you define all a little more clearly? Do you mean all as in: everything, or all as in: the sinful stuff I really don’t enjoy that much anyway?

And what’s the timeline, Lord? You know how weak I am. Maybe after I finish this Bible study. Or perhaps after I get through that next book on being more holy. If I could just find the time. What’s that, Lord? Don’t tarry? I’ll need to talk to my preacher about the context there. Didn’t Paul spend a few years in the desert before he began his ministry?

In the U.S. we have more Bibles per capita than any nation in history, and yet how many of us are in danger of letting ourselves become like that three year-old boy, professing ignorance? And yet there it all is: visit the imprisoned, care for the widows and orphans, love our enemies. As Oswald Chambers wrote: “The majority of us have no ear for anything but ourselves, we cannot hear a thing God says.” In the worst cases, I think, we hear not a word because we are caught up in our pursuit of individual holiness, as if it is an end rather than a consequence of obedience.

I’m trying to listen more closely to the answers that were spoken before I ever asked a question.