The English language is full of idioms that are confusing to Americans, much less to a person trying to learn English as their second language. Many of those idioms have been around for a while and we have only a vague idea of what they mean and no clue about their origin. Such is the case if we say someone is feeling their oats.
Imagine someone hearing that phrase for the first time. Doesn’t it paint a funny picture? If someone is taking this quite literally, they can envision a bunch of farmers in a field, petting their oats one by one as if they were a kitten. Does this encourage the oats to grow? Does it make the oats feel good? Nice oats! Good oats! You’re looking great today, oats! Keep growing!
Well, the idiom has nothing to do with grooming grain. The phrase actually refers to the burst of energy a horse gets when eating oats. Oats are full of starch and carbs. A racehorse may eat 35,000 calories per day. If part of their daily feed is in oats, shortly after eating them, they feel the energy. They will gallop, prance, run, and get rambunctious. Their daring confidence coming from this energy is the source of the phrase.
The phrase came about in the 1800s. However, it came to mean more than just energy. The implication of someone feeling their oats tends to mean that they are overconfident with an ego-inflated head. They are cocky and certain in what they are doing, daring and risky. Typically, the person feeling their oats will not listen to calmer hearts and heads.
We tend to feel our oats when we are younger. The older we get, do we really want too many bursts of energy, knowing that we will probably do something that we will pay for later as our bones and muscles ache? In our younger years, though, those bursts were good if they were channeled in the right direction.
Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:1 says, “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart
cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. (10) Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity. (12:1) Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.”
The passage provides a warning and an admonition. The warning is that when we are young and we have all that vitality, we can do a LOT of things. There is a tendency to do some bad things – maybe sow some wild oats. God says, “Go ahead. BUT…you will pay for it. You will be brought into judgment.” Galatians 6:7-8 says, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (8) For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”
The admonition is to remove the sorrow and evil that can be brought about by youth and feeling our oats. Instead, remember your Creator. Give HIM all that energy, strength, vitality, ambition, and drive. Do something positive with all that energy. Sow the energy of feeling your oats in the things of the Lord. You will never regret it!
It’s Saturday. You got to sleep in a bit. You’re feeling more relaxed and less pressure. Are you feeling your oats? What will you do with that energy? Will the Lord get the benefit of it today?
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