Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, recently announced the birth of their daughter, Max Chan Zuckerberg. According to USA Today, their birth announcement also included a letter to their daughter.

The billionaire founder of Facebook and his physician wife wrote, “Max, we love you and feel a great responsibility to leave the world a better place for you and all children. We wish you a life filled with the same love, hope and joy you give us. We can’t wait to see what you bring to this world.”

The couple pledged that over the course of their lives they would donate 99 percent of their Facebook shares (currently worth $45 billion) to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. News reports say the organization plans to “advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation” through “personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities.”

I’ve heard it said, “A baby changes everything.” I think that describes the Zuckerberg family. Talk to any mother, especially a new mother, and you find out how a baby changes everything. Mothers (and fathers too) can tell how a newborn gives you a different perspective on life. How well I remember changing diapers, middle-of- the-night feedings, rocking the baby to sleep, and endless other tasks.

Cardinal Dolan once told about the birth of his great-nephew, Charlie, and how Charlie’s parents were no longer living just for themselves, but also for their baby. Charlie changed their sleep schedule, their plans, their budget, their conversation, their calendar, their future, and their dreams. He stated, “That’s precisely how it should be! That’s exactly how God intended it to be! That’s what we call a culture of life…The human project is all about babies… Our lives are at their best when centered not upon ourselves but upon babies!”

I’ve heard it said, “A baby is God’s way of saying the world should go on.” God has a plan and purpose for every life, according to Jeremiah 29:11. And, of all births, the birth of the Christ changed all of history.

C.S. Lewis remarked, “The central event of all time, so pivotal that history itself is dated as before or after, was the birth of a baby…(God) knew that the most effective way to change lives was to send a baby. So, the ‘Word became flesh,’” when God sent His Son, born of woman who gave birth to her firstborn (John 1:14).

Oswald Chambers, one of my favorite authors, said, “The tremendous revelation of Christianity is not the Fatherhood of God, but the Baby-hood of God – God became the weakest thing in His own creation, and in flesh and blood. He levered it back to where it was intended to be.”

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Christ was a priceless gift given to all mankind forever. C.S. Lewis described it this way, “At Bethlehem God became man to enable men to become the sons of God.”

-Jan White is an award-winning columnist.