Being a better husband and father means being a fruit inspector.

A big part of being a better husband and father is learning to inspect fruit. Let me explain: are you seeing evidence of God producing increasing amounts of love, patience, and faithfulness in your life?

In our day to day lives, it can be hard to see. Let’s look at how to tell if you’re winning or losing as a dad.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” —Galatians 5:22-23

Being a better husband and father means being a better fruit inspector.

I don’t know if you’re like me. But, the fruit of the spirit is not always on high definition display in my life. There are many days when, at best, the fruit of the spirit looks like one of those old fuzzy VHS tapes. You know what I mean?

It seems like I can wake up one day and have some patience. Or, on another day, I will have exhibit love. Then, the next day I’m impatient, I’m unkind. I don’t know if you experience that. But, it can feel like one day you’re in the game and one day you’re out of the game. It can be frustrating.

But, I’ve also found that over enough time—maybe a year or 10—I can start to see more fruit. Here’s the thing: if you know me, this is the most patient and loving version of Kent Evans that has ever existed! I know—that may scare you! : )

But, here’s the truth. The truth is that over enough time, we can start to see the fruit of the spirit in our lives. Now, I want to be very careful here. We can’t conjure the fruit up by ourselves. It’s the fruit “of the spirit”. It’s given to us by God through the Holy Spirit. We can’t manufacture it.

It’s not like an investment where we can go put a dollar in, wait a year, and get $1.50 out later. That’s not how it works. So, you may ask, “Well, how do I show more fruit?”

You have to walk “by the spirit.” It won’t be easy. You’ll have some up days and some down days. But, over enough time, the trajectory of your life should be that more and more fruits are evident in your life. So, let’s do a quick fruit inspection.

Your mission for being a better husband and father. Be a better fruit inspector.

In our day-to-day life, spiritual fruit is often difficult to detect. One day, we may feel very patient or kind, but the next we may struggle in those areas. But, as a follower of Christ, the Holy Spirit is working in us to produce a noticeable “harvest” of these traits in our lives.

It helps to step back from the day to day and look at the big picture of our lives. Below, you can rank your progress in the production of spiritual fruit. Consider what you were like 5 years ago and give yourself a ranking between -3 and +3. A -3 means you see significantly less of this fruit in your life. A zero means it is about the same. A +3 means you see significantly more.

The purpose of this exercise is, first, to give glory to God for how He is working in your life. He is the one who produces the fruit!

Second, it’s to make you aware of areas where you continue to grow and mature. Be cognizant of areas where you’ve seen little growth and seek to develop in them. Most significantly, make them a focus of your prayer life, asking God to bring about a bountiful harvest of mature fruit in your life.