It can be hard to trust people and sometimes even God. Sometimes you do trust but then something happens and you begin to question. This 7-Day reading plan offers biblically based and thought provoking readings and scriptures to help you deepen your relationship with the Lord by trusting Him more.

1. A Biblical Reading Plan

2. It can be hard to trust people and sometimes even
God. Sometimes you do trust but then something
happens and you begin to question.
This 7-Day reading plan offers biblically based and
thought provoking readings and scriptures to help
you deepen your relationship with the Lord by
trusting Him more.

3. Table of Contents
Day 1:
Day 2:
Day 3:
Day 4:
Day 5:
Day 6:
Day 7:
Tainted Trust
Obstacles to Trust
Trusting the Lord
Battling Adversity
Fear and Trust
Trust in the Lord
Trusting God’s Plan

4. Day 1: Tainted Trust
God instructs Moses: “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites” (Numbers
13:2). The recon team spends forty days in stealthy exploration. They return to camp with good news and bad news.
It’s a land flowing with milk and honey, they say . . . but a fierce street gang who call themselves the Anakim roam the
neighborhood . . .
Fearless Caleb speaks up and says, “Let’s go wipe ’em out and seize the territory!” His intimidated cohorts protest, “No
way! They’ll have us for breakfast.” The Israelite community vacillates, then starts weeping and wailing . . . They
believe in God. They have faith in Yahweh, and yet — because of fear of the Anakim — they abandon hope in his
promise that they will take possession of Canaan. With the exception of Moses, Aaron and Caleb, despair
contaminates the Chosen People. Confronted with stronger battalions, faced with apparently insuperable obstacles,
they allow their trust in Yahweh’s guidance and protection to collapse. But faith in God without hope in his promises is
tainted trust.
How well we know the Israelites’ conundrum. Hesitation and uncertainty prevail. The craving for tangible reassurance
of God’s faithfulness increases. We press for more convincing proofs of abiding, divine presence. When they are not
forthcoming, we decide to take control. Safety is our only passion. In a spiritual life charged with ambiguity, we cannot
afford to make mistakes. Endless analysis replaces creative action. The willingness to risk is submerged in a raging sea
of nagging doubts. We must have absolute clarity before we can proceed.
What we have failed to learn is that clarity, reassurance and proof cannot create trust, sustain it or guarantee any
certainty of its presence.
Taken from NIV Ragamuffin Bible
See next slide for related Scripture

5. NUM.13.26-33
They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in
the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and
showed them the fruit of the land. 27 They gave Moses this account: “We went into the
land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. 28 But
the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We
even saw descendants of Anakthere. 29 The Amalekites live in the Negev; the
Hittites, Jebusites and Amoriteslive in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near
the sea and along the Jordan.”
30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take
possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they
are stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about
the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in
it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the
descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our
own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

6. Day 2: Obstacles to Trust
Edward Farrell, author of Prayer Is a Hunger, maintains that the three greatest obstacles to
trust are amnesia, inertia and mañana. We are all subject to forgetfulness of God’s
faithfulness in the past, laziness to act on the divine promise and postponing until tomorrow
what Jesus is asking of us today: childlike abandonment in trust.
Taken from NIV Ragamuffin Bible
The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: 2 “Take a census of the Kohathite branch of the
Levites by their clans and families. 3 Count all the men from thirty to fifty years of
age who come to serve in the work at the tent of meeting.
4 “This is the work of the Kohathites at the tent of meeting: the care of the most holy
things.
-Numbers 4:1-4

7. Day 3: Trusting the Lord
The splendor of a human heart that trusts that it is loved gives God more pleasure and
delight than Westminster Cathedral, the Sistine Chapel and all the other human glories
combined. Why does our trust offer such immense pleasure to God? Because trust is the
preeminent expression of love. Thus, it may mean more to Jesus when we say, “I trust
you,” than when we say, “I love you.”
Taken from NIV Ragamuffin Bible
Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. 30 The LORD your God,
who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very
eyes, 31 and in the wilderness. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a
father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”
32 In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God, 33 who went ahead of you on
your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp
and to show you the way you should go.
- Deuteronomy 1:29-33

8. Day 4: Battling Adversity
At least four of Jesus’ disciples — Peter, Andrew, James and John — made their living as
fishermen. Certainly they knew of Galilee’s infamous storms. Yet on one occasion, they
panicked when a storm arose. Jesus woke from his nap, rebuked them for lacking faith
and then calmed the storm. For us, storms can rise quickly as well: a dark spot shows up
on an X-ray; a pink slip lands on our desk at work; a kid gets in with the wrong crowd at
school; a parent dies; the stock market tanks. When these “winds” rise, remember Jesus.
Trust him first — no matter how overwhelming the storm appears.
REFLECT & PRAY:
*What storms in life do you find most difficult to face?
*Why do most of us struggle with trusting God first?
*When you’ve trusted God during difficult times, what has resulted? How can those
experiences help you place your trust in him during the next trial you face?
Taken from NIV Busy Dad’s Bible
See next slide for related scripture

9. MAT.8.23-27
Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him. 24 Suddenly a furious
storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was
sleeping. 25 The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to
drown!”
26 He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and
rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.
27 The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and
the waves obey him!”

10. Day 5: Fear and Trust
The Gospel of Luke tells us that the Jewish religious leaders wanted to get rid of Jesus
because “they were afraid of the people” (Luke 22:2). Fear of losing their influence and of
the consequences of social unrest fueled their hatred of Jesus and contributed to their
desire to have him put to death. We have our own fears, usually less dramatic — loss of
security, position, influence, approval, reputation, income and much more — and we
make compromises we know we shouldn’t make.
Our fears usually prove to be a snare for us, and they all stem from not trusting God. Fear
is behind peer pressure, compromise, an unbridled pursuit of wealth and security, and
much of what we do for affirmation and approval. Fear diverts us from an
uncompromising commitment to God and his plan for our lives. The remedy is trust: a
choice to depend entirely on God for all we need in every area of life.
When we trust him completely, no one can intimidate us. We are free to live as he wants
us to live.
Taken from Once a Day 31 Days of Wisdom
Fear of man will prove to be a snare,
but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.
- Proverbs 29:25

11. Day 6: Trust in the Lord
Trust in the LORD. “Commit your way to the LORD” (Ps 37:5), like Israel’s ancestors, who
trusted in God and were rescued (Ps 22:4–5). with all your heart. Like Caleb (Nu 14:24;
Dt 1:36; Jos 14:6–14) or the godly King Hezekiah (Isa 38:3). David challenged Solomon
to serve God “with wholehearted devotion” (1Ch 28:9).
Taken from NIV Study Bible
Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
-Proverbs 3:5

12. Day 7: Trusting God’s Plan
The situation looked hopeless. The 2.5 million Israelites desperately needed food and
water. When God didn’t provide for the Israelites in the way they expected, they became
angry and accused God of taking them into the wilderness to starve them to death.
But they failed to recognize that God saw their predicament and had plans to take care of
them. He supplied them with “manna.” “What is it?” was the people’s first reaction when
they saw it on the ground (verse 15). God’s food was unusual, but that shouldn’t have
come as a big surprise. After all, these were the same people who had miraculously
walked through the Red Sea.
Why did God meet their need in this way? God wanted the people to depend on him, to
have complete faith in him.
This passage shows that God will do whatever is necessary to provide for his followers so
they can accomplish his purposes. While he may not meet their needs in predictable ways
or supply every single need, he will make sure they have enough. God has reasons for his
methods — a higher purpose and plan that we can’t see. Like Moses, we need to trust God
and wait for his provision in our lives.
Taken from NIV The Journey Bible
See next slide for related Scripture

13. EXO.16.3-4
The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt!
There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have
brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”
4 Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The
people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will
test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.

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15. If you enjoyed this Reading Plan be
sure to check out:
• NIV Discover God’s Heart Bible
• NIV Case for Christ Study Bible
• NIV Streams in the Desert Bible
• Find Hope in Christ by Focusing on His Promises
• NIV Men’s Devotional Bible
• NIV Real-Life Devotional Bible for Women
• Once-A-Day Nurturing Great Kids Devotional
• Fulfilled: NIV Devotional for the Single Woman
• NIV Dad’s Devotional Bible