Threats to America: Ranked

America has been obsessive with the Ebola and ISIS pandemonium. However, one article recently ranked the current threats to America by their “actual threat value instead of the media hype.” Here is their list of the top 9 threats to America (MSN):

9. Ebola

8. Your Own Furniture – 30 Americans killed and about 40,000 injured per year.

7. ISIS

6. The Flu – Thousands die every year from the flu (typically the elderly and very young).

5. World War 3 Breaking Out in the Baltics.

4. Climate Change

3. Guns

2. Traffic Accidents – About 34,000 deaths in 2011

1. Heart Disease & Cancer – Currently the top two killers of Americans.

Agree or disagree, this list is intriguing. This list communicates a lot about our world. It speaks of current trends and ideals, realistic or otherwise. It talks of other nations’ anger and disagreements. Above all else, this list communicates the aspects our society worries about the most. In reality, most of these have a pretty low threat value. We will probably never encounter the majority of these in our lifetime, yet we continue to stress over them.

I get it. There are a lot of scary things in this world. But let’s not forget that if we are living faithfully, we have God in our corner. This is why God tells us to “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). In the absolutely worst-case scenario, a faithful Christian dies from some of these and goes to heaven (Revelation 21:4; 2:10).

We can drive ourselves crazy by worrying about everything in this life (Matthew 6:25-34). Instead of doing this, let’s abide by a good rule of thumb:

1. Stop worrying.
2. Fix what we can control (better health, safe driving, corner protectors on furniture).
3. Place everything else in God’s control.