Ben Domenech has an excellent post on what graduates should be hearing at their commencement.
I can attest to the truth of his wisdom. A couple of years after I graduated from college, I was unhappy with my church, yet instead of just looking for another church, I just turned my back on God altogether and went off on my own. I did some things I shouldn't have done, but it all comes down to this: I ignored God, living as though He didn't exist, or didn't care. I certainly didn't care about Him during that time.
Sometime in the late 1990's it started to hit me that the message that groups like Promise Keepers were trying to get across to America was right after all. Faith matters -- Families matter -- and for the same reason. God is the foundation, and provides a solid foundation for living. There's a verse in Psalm 11, "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?". It has to do with this I think. There are all sorts of spiritual forces around us telling us that compromising on our standards is alright, no one's going to get hurt. Anything that makes us view others as anything less than a being created in God's image is going to harden us to the reality of God's commandment to "love our neighbor as ourself" however.
One of the best sources for inspiration and motivation for me is Psalm 37, which says that righteousness and justice grow in us as we trust in God. I pray around these verses a lot:
Trust in the LORD, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the noonday. Psalm 37:3-6 NKJV
Later in the Psalm, David also says,
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD,
And He delights in his way.
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down;
For the LORD upholds him with His hand.
Psalm 37:23-24 NKJV
I'm familiar with both halves of that as well. I can get rolling in my walk with God, and really feel like I'm making progress, and then POW!! I'm flat on my face, getting up and asking God to help me get up and move on. It isn't fun when that happens, but I'm committed to getting up and following Him each day.