Paul is a great example for us. Philippians 3:12-14 used the word ‘press’ two times. Here is his forward stance. Verse 13-14 says, “…this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I PRESS toward the goal…”

The wording is like a trapeze artist. The motion is fluid from the first bar to the oncoming bar. They don’t even think of looking back. Their focus is always forward.

The forgetting is the empowerment to reach. Emotional pain, even if it happened yesterday, is now the past. You have passed from it and are in the present.

Our past is only in our mind. We cannot go back to it. It is like the first bar. In order to grasp the oncoming bar, the trapeze artist has to let go of the first.

Holding onto the past is the old wineskin. Luke 5:37 says, “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.”

Verse 38 says that new wine, or revelational insight, must be put into new wineskins, or the good works the Lord has called you to walk in now, so they are both preserved.

What are you holding onto from your past that is impeding your forward motion? Pressing through requires a new mindset. It is a total recognition that the old is passed. There is no room for the past in the present.