The Three Paths That Point to God (But Are Not God)

There’s a quiet mistake many people make in the journey of faith. It doesn’t happen loudly and doesn’t come with warning signs. In fact, it often feels like growth—until one day you realize you’ve been holding onto something tightly… but isn’t actually God.

At the center of any genuine spiritual journey is this: your focus must remain on the persona of God —not just ideas about Him, not just systems around Him, but God Himself.

Who is God?

Here it gets a bit uncomfortable, especially for those of us who identify strongly with a particular tradition: God does not belong to any one label. “God” is not a personal name in the way we name people. It’s more like saying king or lord —a title that points to a reality beyond human ownership. So whether someone stands in a church, a mosque, a temple, or under a tree in quiet reflection, the longing underneath is often the same: to find and connect with the One behind it all - God.

But along the way, something subtle happens. The things meant to INTRODUCE us to God can quietly become the things that REPLACE Him. Let’s talk about the three most common ones.

1. People: The Guides Who Are Not the Destination

No one really starts this journey of faith alone. Somewhere along the line, there is always a person—a voice, a life, an example. In the biblical narrative, figures like Abraham and Moses didn’t exist to draw attention to themselves, but to point beyond themselves. This still holds today.

It could be a parent, a friend, a teacher, a preacher or just someone whose life makes you pause and think, “There’s something different here.” That’s how it often begins.

But here’s the danger: admiration can quietly become attachment, attachment can slowly become dependence and dependence—if left unchecked—can begin to look a lot like worship. Suddenly, every decision must pass through that person. Every thought must be approved. Every step feels uncertain without them. At that point, the guide has unintentionally taken the place of the One they were meant to guide you toward and some of them love it this way. They enjoy the reverence, the consultation, the honor and the following.

A healthy guide will always be pointing you away from themselves and toward God. If everything keeps circling back to them, something has gone off course.

2. Places: Where Encounters Happen, Not Where God Lives

There are places that feel… different. Sacred, even. In scripture, locations like Mount Sinai or the Garden of Eden are tied to powerful encounters. Moments that shaped people and redirected entire histories. Even now, people still mark places.

• A church where something shifted inside you.
• A quiet hill where you first felt peace.
• A room where a prayer seemed to land differently.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Places can hold memory, they can remind you and can anchor moments that matter. But they are still just places. God does not live in a building the way furniture does. He is not waiting at a specific GPS coordinate like, “Arrive here for divine presence.” Yet, people sometimes live as though He is.

“I can’t leave this place—this is where I found God.”

It sounds sincere. It often is. But it can also quietly become limiting. Because the truth is, even if God met you there, He is not confined there. The place was a doorway, not a destination.

3. Parchment: From Scrolls to Screens

This one might be the most subtle—and the most widespread. Long before printing presses and smartphones, there was parchment. Carefully prepared animal skins, used to preserve words that mattered. Before that, papyrus. Before that, oral tradition trying its best not to forget.

Then came ink, scrolls, bound books, libraries, printing presses and then mass production. Fast forward, and now… your “parchment” might glow in your hand at 2 a.m. with 3% battery and a cracked screen.

Same idea. Different format.

Texts like the Bible, the Qur'an, or the Rig Veda are not random writings. They are records of encounter, reflection, instruction, and longing. They carry generations of people reaching toward God and trying to make sense of what they experienced and that matters. But here’s the tension: the value of a text lies in what it reveals, not what it physically is and yet, it’s very easy to cross that line.

A book is treated with such intensity that touching it wrongly feels like a greater offense than missing its message entirely. Pages are protected, but hearts remain unchanged. At some point, you have to ask: Have I encountered God through this… or have I only encountered the document?

Because it is entirely possible to study deeply, understand structure, memorize passages—and still miss the One being pointed to. Information is not the same as transformation and just to say it plainly, with a bit of honesty and a touch of humor: if your entire faith collapses because someone mishandled a physical book, then maybe your faith was resting on paper… not on God.

So what’s the point?

People matter, places matter and parchments —whether ancient scroll or modern screen—matters.

They are not useless, they are not distractions by default. In fact, they are often necessary. But they are all means; They introduce, they point, they guide but they are not meant to replace. Because a great tragedy in any spiritual journey is not ignorance—it’s misplacement.

It’s standing in a place where God is being revealed, surrounded by tools that point to Him, guided by people who have encountered Him… and still missing Him.

Every now and then, it helps to pause and ask:

1. Am I growing closer to God, or just closer to a person?

2. Am I attached to a place, or to the One who met me there?

3. Am I reading to encounter God, or just to accumulate knowledge?

The answers to those questions can quietly reset everything because in the end, the goal is not to master the tools but to know God. The tools—when used well—will always lead you there, and then gently step aside.🚶