"As long as the present is at war with the past," said Winston Churchill at the conclusion of World War 2, "there is no hope for the future!"  The connection between the present and the past is something like the force of heredity.  It's there, but it can't always get you where you want to go.  Writing to the Philippians, Paul stressed the importance of forgetting the past and focusing on the future.  He wrote, "Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do:  Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).