A Humourous story: (Special Thanks to Fr. John Bosco) (with edit)

There was a boy who wanted to have his own bicycle. Each time he would get envious of his friends whenever he saw his friends on their bicycle. One day, he asked his parents for a bicycle, however, his parents is going through a great financial difficulty.

So, being left without any choice, he decided to pray and ask (or rather demand) God for it. However, his prayers were not answered, and of course, he didnt get any bicycle. So he decide that God did not answer his prayers and decide to write a letter to God.

He took up a pen and started writing, "Dear God, I am a good boy..." but again, he remembered that he was told that God knows the truth and there is no way we can lie to Him. So he crushed the paper and throw it to the rubbish bin. He came up with an idea. He walked to the altar in his house and it contains many statues of Jesus etc. His mother told him not to touch these statues as it is fragile and it is bought from Holy Land. However, he cautiously carried one of the statue of Jesus away, wrapped up the statue of Jesus carefully with a cloth and lock it in his closet and say "If you want to see Mummy again, GET ME A BICYCLE!!!"

My dear friends, many times we are like this little boy in our prayer. We ask God for whatever we want, and we end up blackmailing God, for example, we will say "God, if you give me good results, I promise to say 15 decades of the rosary each day" or "God, if you let me have this girl, I promise to revise my work ten hours a day". In the end, we end up making empty promises.

So my dear friends, points to ponder in prayer: Are we like the boy who 'blackmail' God, only remembering God when in need, and forgetting God when we have what we wanted? :D