Do you actually say that the story is more important than the event itself?
That's exactly what I'm saying. The perspective of how God relates to, and in and of, a Biblical miracle is the whole point of the miracle.
So If I say something that "Yesterday, I prayed to god that he'd turn the moon into green cheese, and he did!
Let's say the moon did turn to green cheese, understanding that you and I know that it didn't. I'm talking about a purely hypothetical point of reference. If the moon has been made to green cheese, is it a miracle? No.
The ancients had a different understanding of the nature of miracles and what they signify spiritually. It is not the all important God of Facts that is modern culture and living. To understand what is meant by a miracle, one has to step outside of their own self and try to understand what is being said to the reader of the time in the context of their existence in that time.
I turn to a Hindu story that is one of my favorites, because it explains the nature of a miracle far better than Western writings:
Once upon a time, in a holy forest, there lived a sage called
Mankanaka, who ate nothing but grass and the leaves of
plants. For many years, he lived on this pure and austere diet,
and his spiritual potency became very intense.
One day, as Mankanaka sat in front of his hut weaving a grass
mat, he happened to cut himself on a sharp blade of grass. He
saw that green sap, not blood, oozed from the cut! His amazement
knew no bounds. "Finally, I have gone beyond the human state,
and I have become as sacred and blameless as a plant," he thought.
A frenzy of joy overtook Mankanaka, and he began to laugh and dance.
His laughter shook all corners of the world like cosmic thunder, and the
power of his dance frove first the forest and then the whole world to
laugh and dance with him. As if enchanted, animals and trees, stones
and rivers, lakes and mountains fell into the rhythms of the sage's wild
dance.
The gods looked down and saw the danger that the earth was in.
Oceans were overflowing, and dust was rising from the earth as smoke
rises from a forest fire, darkening the skies. The gods ran to Shiva and
asked him to rescue the earth from annihilation.
Shiva took the form of a hermit. He went to Mankanaka, and stood still
beside him. Mankanaka calmed down enough to look at the silent,
motionless hermit. He recognized who the hermit really was from the
secret signs visable to seers, and he wondered why the Great God, the
Lord of Dancers, wasn't joining him in his dance.
"Why are you so happy?" Shiva asked. Mankanaka pointed to his
wound, which was still oozing vegetable sap, and said, "O Lord of Gods,
don't you see that I have become so sacred that I have no blood at all?
I am superhuman! I am celebrating my miracle!"
Shiva smiled, and then pressed a fingernail into his own thumb. While
Mankanaka looked on, ashes, as white as snow and fine and
luminescent as moonlight, flowed out from the thumb of the Great God,
Shiva Mahadeva. Their radiance bathed the forest and beyond in a
healing mist.
The sight of Shiva's vibhooti, his sacred ashes, purer than green sap
and everything else in the world, brought a sobering calmness to
Mankanaka. He prostrated himself at Shiva's feet, and the whole world
came to a standstill.
We have two amazing happenings here but only one is a miracle. Mankanaka's amazing event is not a miracle because it is done only by him and for him. In his praise for himself, his miracle becomes quite destructive. Enter Shiva's miracle - equally impressive, Shiva's miracle does not bask in self grandeur and look-at-how-great-I-am. It is not as quite as overtly impressive as Mankanaka's, either; it is just some fog, after all. However, it is a reflection of God, of the spiritual, in a way that Mankanaka's event is not. It heals instead of destroys, and is the event that is the miracle.