It's not much unlike the "debate" (for lack of a better word) over whether we should pray that the Lord humbles us. The old saints used to teach against that, but I hear new preachers saying it all the time. The old saints would say that asking the Lord to humble you is asking for trouble because humbling can be painful, embarrassing, devastating, etc.
Or the "teach me how to wait" prayer... they would say that instead of asking God to teach us to wait, we should ask Him to move quickly so we don't have to wait... LOL... and that when you ask God that, you're inviting Him to prolong your blessings.
All that stuff, to me, is just hyper-religion.