Examining the fruit (Galatians 4-6)

For the last few months I've been working on an independent study Greek course.  One of the challenges of learning Greek is that you have to be a little bit of a detective to figure out exactly what case words are put in in a sentence; you have to use context clues to find out the real meaning.  The same concept applies as it comes to evidence of the Holy Spirit in someone's life: you examine your life, and you determine whether or not there is any "spiritual fruit," as described in Galatians 5.  Give yourself a self-test.  Compared to last year, how would you rate your levels of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?  Are you growing in these areas?  If so, then there is evidence of the Holy Spirit in your life.  If you're not growing in those areas, then you might ask yourself, "Why?"  Just as you don't find apples growing from an orange tree or bananas growing from a pear tree, you won't find these virtues growing in a life that isn't connected to the Spirit.  What does your fruit look like?