I’m not sure this is correct grammatically but I think rut is the plural of routine. While we need routines, too much and too many can leave us like the little slot car racers – running at top speed around and around in our little slot, never seeing or doing anything new, challenging or horizon expanding. Growth requires we let God pop us out of our predictable race car “slot” sometimes and “go where no man has gone before”. (OK, somebody at sometime has probably gone there before. I just couldn’t resist the Star Trek reference.)
But I have found when God takes us to a new level – you know, that “glory to glory” thing – that we always walk close to the slot, the old rut. When we get tired, discouraged or just lazy, it is easy to kick back into the old habits, the old way of doing things, the familiar “rut-ine”.