What to pray and Thanks giving

I came accross a very interesting piece of information on prayer by Dr Gopalakrishnan.....
"WHAT SHOULD I PRAY ?: Pray for getting the courage to face all the positives and negatives in our life. The prayer will work if and only if we pray for what we deserve. We do not know what we deserve. We only know what we want. If we want to go for a 300 km using 5 liter petrol in your car and pray to the god. You know what will happen. What we deserve is 5 liter equivalent distance coverage. What we want is 300 kms distance. Think what we deserve and what we will get. And also think 500 people pray for the first rank in the exam and how many will get the same !"
A few days back i had heard a similar arguement in a christian programme... where the perspective of God was being discussed in a situation where a daughter prays God for a favourable decision from parents for a marriage with a boy with whom she is in love and the parents pray for a favourable decision for change of mind from the daughter to consent to a marriage with a boy they have chosen. If all are equally religiuos who will the God favour???

Personally I do not believe that God will ever interfere in such a decision... and prefer to go by the theory that God never gives me anything since nothing has been taken away from me.
Hence I cannot accept the concept of Thanksgiving at all.....