The North Star and the Conductor Who Never Looked Down

Harriet Tubman led nineteen missions through the Underground Railroad, guiding more than three hundred men, women, and children from the plantations of Maryland to freedom in the North. She moved at night, through swamps and dense forest, with slave catchers and their dogs sometimes close enough to hear. She was asked once how she kept her bearings in the dark, and her answer was simple: she looked up.

Tubman had memorized the night sky. The North Star — Polaris — never moved, and as long as she could see it through the tree canopy, she knew where she was going. But her deeper confidence wasn't astronomical. She prayed constantly, often out loud, believing that the God who made the stars was also watching every step her small band of refugees took through the dark. She famously said she never lost a single passenger. She credited not her own courage, but the One she called her Protector.

This is exactly the confidence of Psalm 121. "I lift my eyes to the hills — where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." The psalmist wasn't trusting the mountains themselves. He was looking past them, upward, to the One who neither slumbers nor sleeps, who watches over your going out and your coming in.

Whatever wilderness you're navigating right now — look up. The same God who guided Harriet Tubman through the night is keeping watch over you.