If I point a flashlight directly at you, that's different from me pointing the flashlight at the person standing next to you. Even though in both cases the beam will light you up.
But that becomes effectively the same thing if the flashlight is being pointed in your direction from 10km away and it's reasonable to just describe it as pointing at you. Coming from 8 billion ly away, the beam is probably wide enough that it would appear to be pointed at the Milky Way in general.